

Class 7J _ 

Book_ - /'/ r _ 

Copyright N? -4311 


COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 














“The Scientific 
Embalmer” 


A Treatise Which Solves the 
Question of Embalming 
and the Puzzles of 
the Embalmer 











































"£be Scientific 
Embalmer 


cA Treatise on Judicial Embalming, 
throwing light on very important 
questions which had so far 
remained obscure. 


By 

Dr. Gustav H. Michel, M.D., B.Sc. 

* \ 

ANATOMIST, BACTERIOLOGIST, 
PHYSIOLOGIST AND CHEMIST 


Author cf the Chart of the Arterial, Venous 
and Nervous Systems; Chart of the Mus¬ 
cular System With Its Arterial Rela¬ 
tions; Chart of Osteology and 
Internal Organs. 


Copyrighted by the author, 1913 


Price. Si.50. 


Published by 

DR. G. H. MICHEL & CO. 

3808 PROSPECT AVENUE 

CLEVELAND, OHIO 


1913 








CONTENTS 


Page 

The phenomenon of death explained. 7 

The circulatory system . 11 

The Capillaries, a lesson in microscopic anatomy 13 
Table showing by order the Systemic circulation 

of the Embalming Fluid. 15 

Draining out the blood. 17 

Index as to the necessity of injecting the ab¬ 
domen . 18 

Blood discolorations. How to best remove them 19 
Coagulation of the blood. 20 

Disinfection of the blood. How is the blood best 

disinfected . 22 

Injecting a weak solution before the embalming 

fluid. Its advantage and disadvantage. 23 

Tissue gas. Signs of; treatment of. 26 

Decomposition setting in before death. 31 

The various causes of the face turning black. . 33 

Discolorations. Bacterial colors. Chemical 

colors. Disease colors and blood colors.... 35 

Obstructed circulation. Causes of. 39 

Yellow jaundice . 42 

Frothing by the mouth or nostrils. 43 

A lesson in Bacteriology. Bacteria classified 

and illustrated . 44 

Bacteria and disinfectants. A lesson in chemis¬ 
try .. 51 

Autopsy cases . 54 

Helpful suggestions . 55 

Procedure for a thorough embalming. 57 

Diseases of the arteries and veins... 59 

What necessity is there to inject the brain?... 60 
Quantity of fluid required to preserve a body. ... 61 

Collateral circulation in the right arm. 63 

How to determine and locate the presence of 

gas in the abdomen. 64 

Dry air and formaldehyde. 66 

Dropsy . 67 

Preservation of the Egyptian Mummies explained 70 

Modern Mummies .74, 75 

• 

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PREFACE 


The course of studies in embalming schools 
is so short and so insufficient that it is impos¬ 
sible for any student to be a trained em'balmer 
at the end of such a term. Some courses are 
limited to two weeks, others to three or four 
weeks, a time which is not even sufficient to 
learn the essential parts of Anatomy. 

Hence, only the barest rudiments of 
Anatomy are taught, together with the mech¬ 
anical part of embalming. The teachers them¬ 
selves, in order to be able to explain the many 
diverse conditions present in different bodies 
and the various treatments that such condi¬ 
tions require, should have a thorough knowl¬ 
edge of Anatomy and Bacteriology, and at 
least a fair knowledge of Physiology and 
Chemistry. Such is not the case, however, ex¬ 
cept in very few schools. Consequently, the 
embalmer, when in business for himself, is left 
to his own resources and judgment, and has 
to gain experience at the cost of many failures. 

The teaching of embalming consists in fact 
of two branches,—mechanical and scientific. 
The mechanical procedure, as taught in the 
schools, consists of raising the arteries, inject¬ 
ing the fluid, draining out the blood, aspirat¬ 
ing the gas, etc. 

The scientific branch, which is by far the 
most important, consists of a fundamental 
knowledge, which enables the embalmer to 
understand the conditions present in the 
bodies, judge of the requirements of each case, 
avoid the causes of failures, and thereby solve 



his own difficulties. This scientific side of 
embalming is never taught in the embalming 
schools; it is a post-graduate course without 
which no embalmer can be successful. If 
after learning the mechanical management, he 
does not learn the scientific management, he 
is like a horse without a driver. No doubt 
the horse can pull, but he will not go far 
without causing an accident when not guided. 

In my relations with the undertaking profes¬ 
sion I became aware that an instructive me¬ 
dium of this kind was badly wanted. At the 
same time I realized that the embalmer did not 
want a long-winded affair in character and 
form, but a brief treatise as concise, plain and 
simple as possible, bearing all instructive 
points in a nutshell, as it were. This is what 
I have endeavored to make it. 



THE PHENOMENON OF DEATH EX¬ 
PLAINED. 


The Disappearance of Life Step by Step. 


Both the undertaker and physician, to be 
properly qualified for their work, should know 
and fully understand the various phases of the 
phenomenon of death, or the process, step by 
step, of the withdrawal of life from the various 
parts of the body. I venture to say, however, 
that no undertaker and very few physicians 
are at all acquainted with it because it was 
never explained before as it is in these pages, 
only passing mentions, no description, having 
ever been made by authorities on physiology. 
The embalmer especially should know what 
the conditions are in a body ‘dying by inches ;” 
as commonly said, and what the consequent 
requirements will be when he comes to em¬ 
balm such a body. 

The Mechanism of the Circulation. 

The power house which manufactures elec¬ 
tricity, the wires which carry this electric force 
away to engines, and the engine which moves 
from this electric force, illustrate most strik¬ 
ingly the mechanism of the blood circulation. 
In the body the brain is the power house which 
manufactures the energy, using the blood as 
fuel; the nerves are the wires which carry this, 
nerve force to the heart (and to all other or¬ 
gans), and the heart is the engine which, 
moved by the nervous impulses, propels the 
blood-stream. The heart is our most active or¬ 
gan, but without the nervous impulses it is as 
inert as an engine without steam. This repre¬ 
sents the mechanism of the circulation during 
normal life ; now let us see how this mechan¬ 
ism is affected at the close of life. 


7 




In bodies dying- slowly from protracted sick¬ 
ness the phenomenon of death is, in fact, a 
gradual retrogression of life from the extremi¬ 
ties to the heart, where the last spark, as stated 
further on, may linger for many hours with no 
other outward sign than a feeble respiration, 
and, last of all, even without respiration. In 
this case the circulation of the blood could not 
be better compared than to a thermometer in 
which the mercury is the blood, the mercury 
bulb the heart, and the mercurial column the 
arteries; the approaching death representing 
the cold temperature, and zero meaning death. 
In proportion as death approaches the blood 
withdraws from the extremities and falls back 
toward the circulatory center—the heart, much 
of the venous blood collecting and stagnating 
in the veins. In such bodies, “dying by 
inches’’ as said, the voluntary functions, such 
as the motions of the arms, legs and head, are 
partially or totally abolished from one to sev¬ 
eral days before death. 

This paralysis is mostly due to want of 
blood circulation in the motor areas of the 
brain and in the paralyzed parts. The bowels 
are usually paralyzed at the same time, or even 
before, from the same cause. Soon afterwards 
this paralysis becomes complete, the motions 
of the eyes, head and little fingers being the 
last ones to disappear. About at the same 
time, or just a little later, the circulation of the 
blood ceases to reach the frontal lobes of the 
brain ; this wipes out the mind and means un¬ 
consciousness. Then the circulation falls back 
to the base of the brain, where the medulla 
oblongata is located. Now the brain is dead, 
and the body practically so, too. There is a 
complete cessation of both the voluntary and 
involuntary functions except those of the heart 
and lungs. The liver, spleen, pancreas, kid¬ 
neys, bladder, stomach and bowels are at a 
complete standstill, and the special senses are 
also abolished, but the final struggle is yet to 
come. 

At this critical point, the source of energy 
(the brain) being lost, nature uses her last re¬ 
sources,—its stored energy. The medulla ob¬ 
longata is the nerve centre of the respiratory 
and heart functions, and sufficient energy is 
stored up in this organ to keep the heart and 


8 


lungs going for hours and sometimes for a day. 
Now the blood circulation is practically con¬ 
fined to the lungs, diaphragm, heart muscle 
and base of the brain, having stopped in nearly 
all other parts. When the energy stored up in 
the medulla oblongata is exhausted the heart 
weakens still more and the blood leaves the 
brain altogether. At this point it would seem 
that the lungs and heart should stop, but they 
don't; they still keep going. 

Nature now falls back on its next stores of 
energy—the three cervical nerve ganglia, (lo¬ 
cated on the vertebrae of the neck), from 
which arises the second set of nerves supply¬ 
ing energy to the lungs and heart. These 
ganglia assume and continue the work of the 
medulla oblongata, giving off the energy stored 
up in them, but their capacities are small and 
they can keep up the flame of life for only 
about an hour. Then comes the struggle for 
breath which marks the last impulses from 
these ganglia, and expiration follows. Is this 
the end? Not yet! Respiration has ceased, 
but the heart still beats. The cardiac nerve 
ganglia, (one or two in number) which are dis¬ 
tant offshoots of the cervical ganglia and lo¬ 
cated right above the heart, are also small 
stores of energy, the very last. These still 
keep the heart going and retain within their 
cells the last spark of life, like a smouldering 
brand covered with its own ashes. This heart¬ 
beat is, however, slow and very feeble, quite 
often not. audible to the ears of the ausculta- 
tor; the blood does not reach the lungs, and 
its circulation is about confined to the heart 
muscle. The body is now in what may be 
properly termed “suspended animation.” The 
length of time that this condition lasts is very 
variable. It is very short, one minute or less, 
in bodies dying by inches, because the nerve 
force back of these last ganglia (the energy 
which was stored up in the cervical ganglia 
and medulla oblongata) is exhausted. In cases 
of sudden death it may last for hours and even 
one day, during which, if the vital organs have 
not been destroyed or disabled by injury, such 
as in drowning or asphyxia by gases, life may 
be rekindled if the proper stimulating meas¬ 
ures are used. Drowned persons have been re¬ 
vived several hours after having been taken 


9 


out of the water. A slightly stronger flutter 
of the heart, propelling a few drops of blood 
to the base of the brain and medulla oblongata, 
suffices to thus rekindle life. A drop of blood 
reaching the medulla will set up spasmodic in¬ 
spirations in the lungs, first at long intervals, 
then gradually at shorter intervals as the heart 
gets stronger, until finally the regular respira¬ 
tion is re-established. 

That still condition of bodies dying sud¬ 
denly in full vitality may be quite prolonged. 
The bodies said to have revived after having 
been pronounced dead or buried “alive,” as 
claimed, are just in that condition of prolonged 
stillness in which only the cardiac ganglia re¬ 
tain a spark of life. The self-revival of such 
bodies can only be explained as follows: Some 
groups of cells of the cardiac nerve ganglia, 
which had not yet given ofif their energy, sud¬ 
denly discharge their impulses collectively, 
causing a slight explosion of nerve force on 
the heart muscle. This sudden stimulus re¬ 
sults in some strong beats which propel blood 
to the brain. If this blood reaches the medulla 
oblongata respiration is re-established, and if 
it reaches the frontal lobes of the brain the 
mind is restored and the person awakes. 

This revival, however, is not always com¬ 
plete ; but be it partial or complete there is no 
reliable record of its having been permanent, 
except perhaps in some extremely rare in¬ 
stances. Furthermore, the instances of such 
self-revival are much exaggerated. Certain 
women, desiring to break into conversation 
with an interesting topic, are prone to relate 
some such occurrences which, in fact, are of 
their own fabrication. 

Now I shall refer the embalmer to a later 
chapter for the proper treatment of bodies 
which, died very slowly from diseases attended 
with fever or from a septic condition. 


10 


THE CIRCULATORY SYSTEM. 


The first step toward becoming a good and 
judicial embalmer is to learn well what the 
circulatory system is, so as to bear a constant 
picture of it in mind. This part is fairly well 
taught in certain embalming schools and only 
roughly in others. Anyhow, I consider it nec¬ 
essary to give a brief and more comprehensive 
description of it than is usually done, espe¬ 
cially as to the capillaries. 

The circulatory system in life is made up of 
four links—the heart, arteries, capillaries, and 
veins. In the dead body the heart plays no 
part; to make the fluid circulate the hand of 
the embalmer plays the part of the heart. 
Hence only the arteries, capillaries and veins 
are to be considered as forming the circulatory 
system. 

Plainly speaking, the arteries are big tubes 
which divide and subdivide into branches like 
a tree, the smaller branches being called ar¬ 
terioles. In turn the arterioles divide and sub¬ 
divide into smaller and minute branches, the 
minutest merging with the capillaries. The 
arteries are the carriers of the embalming fluid 
to the capillaries, as they are the carriers of 
the blood to the same in life. 

The capillaries, more fully described in the 
next article, are a network of microscopic 
tubules more minute and dense than the finest 
and closest cobweb. It is in this network that 
the work of disinfection is accomplished by the 
embalming fluid. The veins are tubes as big 
as the arteries. During life they return the 
blood to the heart; at death the blood collects 
in them, and they also receive the surplus of 
the fluid which circulates beyond the capil¬ 
laries. Hence the fluid circulates from the ar¬ 
teries into the capillaries, and, when a suffi¬ 
cient quantity is injected, from the capillaries 
into the veins. 


11 



In all parts of the body except the heart and 
lungs the embalming fluid follows the same 
course as the blood during life. In the heart 
and lungs it takes just the opposite course. 
The blood, during life, flows from the veins 
to the right chambers of the heart, from there 
to the lungs and therefrom to the left cham¬ 
bers of the heart, from which it ascends 
through the Ascending Aorta and becomes dis¬ 
tributed to all parts of the body. On the other 
hand the part of the embalming fluid which 
goes down the Ascending Aorta follows just 
the reverse course. It enters the left cham¬ 
bers of the heart first, then passes to the lungs, 
returns through the right chambers of the 
heart, and therefrom through the Superior 
Vena Cava, Subclavian Vein and drainage 
tube. 

Completing the Circuit. 

The fluid which passes from the arteries to 
the capillaries and from the capillaries to the 
veins, is said to complete the circuit. The 
term might be more accurate, however, if ap¬ 
plied to the fluid which returns through the 
drainage tube. To make the fluid reach the 
veins a sufficient quantity has to be injected. 
The fluid never completes the circuit at the 
same time throughout the body; this comple¬ 
tion in fact depends entirely on the amount of 
fluid injected and the distance it has to travel, 
a free circulation being understood. The fluid 
may complete the circuit around the point of 
injection while yet injecting the second or third 
pint, and may not complete it in the legs until 
six to eight quarts have been injected. This 
point is explained in one of the following arti¬ 
cles. 


12 


THE CAPILLARIES. 


A Lesson on Microscopic Anatomy.—The 

capillary system forms a dense network 
through all the tissues of the body. Its 
meshes are so close that the interspaces be¬ 
tween them can only be seen under the micro¬ 
scope. So narrow are those interspaces that 
the sharp point of a needle cannot pass 
through them. You cannot prick the skin 
without puncturing a capillary, as evidenced 
by the appearance of blood. This shows how 
thoroughly the living body is saturated with 
blood, and the dead body is certainly as well 
saturated with fluid when the capillaries are 
filled. When we realize that every cell and 
fibre of the flesh lie in those interspaces or 



CAPILLARIES OF A LIVER LOBULE. 

Highly Magnified 

A—Central Vein. V—Peripheral Veins, B C—Blood Capil¬ 
laries. D—Bile Capillaries. 


13 




between layers erf capillaries in intimate con¬ 
tact with the latter can we doubt an instant 
that preservation will be perfect if these cap¬ 
illaries carry the proper fluid. 

The size of the interspaces between the 
meshes of the capillaries varies. In the fol¬ 
lowing organs their diameter is as follows:— 


of an inch 

Lungs .1-2800 

Mucous Lining of the Mouth.1-2200 

Mucous Lining of Stomach and Bowels 1-2000 

Skin of Face and Ears .1-600 

Skin of Neck-and Hands.1-400 

Skin of other parts .1-200 

Brain.1-200 

Muscles, transverse - diameter.1-400 

Muscles, longitudinal diameter.1-200 


When the entire flesh is pervaded with cap¬ 
illaries so close and filled with a fluid which 
can penetrate through all of them, would it 
not be insanity to fear failure of preservation? 

As shown above it is in the lungs that the 
capillaries form the closest network, and this 
in fact enables these organs to absorb as much 
as a quart of fluid. Hence the lungs are bet¬ 
ter disinfected than any other part of the body, 
and it is ridiculous to ever inject the chest 
cavitv when there is a free circulation. 

The next parts best supplied with capillaries 
are the mouth, stomach, intestines and face. 
The capillaries of the mucous membranes of 
the mouth, stomach and bowels are the small¬ 
est in size, but very close, so that they absorb 
as much fluid as those of the face and ears, 
which are the largest but much less close. 

The diameter of the capillaries themselves 
varies from 1-1400 to 1-3000 of an inch. 

Disinfection and preservation by the fluid in 
death is strictly the same as disinfection and 
preservation by the blood in life. What the 
blood can do in the living body through the 
capillaries a suitable fluid can certainly do in 
the dead body. 

The process by which the tissues are nour¬ 
ished during life and disinfected after death 
through the capillaries is properly termed 
“exosmosis.” Exosmosis means that the nour¬ 
ishing and disinfecting principles of the blood 


14 










and embalming fluid permeate the tissues 
through the extremely thin walls of the capil¬ 
laries without any blood or fluid escaping 
through the capillary walls. Therefore the 
whole question of preservation resolves itself 
into -this: 

1. —Inject enough fluid to fill all capillaries 
—not less than four quarts in bodies of from 
135 to 170 pounds. (Fat does not need dis¬ 
infecting. Hence, when the abnormal weight 
is mostly fat only the length of the body should 
be taken into consideration.) 

2. —In your first half-gallon use a fluid pos¬ 
sessing great disinfecting and preserving 
power while causing but little rigidity. 

3. —Follow with a strong formaldehyde fluid 
to complete the work and give the desired de¬ 
gree of rigidity. 

Such a fluid as the former will more easily 
remove the discolorations and, when backed 
by the latter, will penetrate to the remotest 
capillaries inaccessible to a strong formal¬ 
dehyde fluid and disinfect not only the flesh 
but also the blood in the veins. 


TABLE SHOWING BY ORDER THE SYS¬ 
TEMIC CIRCULATION OF THE 
EMBALMING FLUID. 


We have determined and timed by actual 
experiment the regular systemic circulation of 
the embalming fluid throughout the body as it 
flows in ; i. e., the parts and organs succes¬ 
sively reached by the fluid. Our findings, as 
determined by our colored fluid, are here given 
by order when injecting the Axillary: 


15 




Inward Flow. 


1. —The big arteries, excep the pulmonary. 

2. —Left ventricle of the heart. 

3. —Small arteries. 

4. —Left auricle of the heart. 

5. —Pulmonary veins and smaller arterioles. 

6. —Capillaries of the thyroid gland, nearer 
shoulder and lungs. 

7. —Capillaries of the face, stomach, spleen, 
bowels, liver, kidneys and pancreas. 

8. —Capillaries of the left arm. 

9. —Capillaries of the legs. 

10. —Capillaries of the brain. 

11. —Capillaries of the bones and marrow. 

12. —Capillaries of the cartilages of the artic¬ 
ulations. 

We must add, however, that the fluid, 
though reaching certain parts of the body long 
before others, becomes more or less evenly 
distributed by gravitation within a few hours, 
provided a sufficient quantity be injected.. 

Four quarts of fluid in a 150 pound body 
reach all parts from No. 1 to No. 12. Three 
quarts do not reach No. 10 and only part of 
No. 9. Two quarts only reach No. 8 imper¬ 
fectly and scarcely any of No. 9. 

Return Flow. 

When some of the fluid comes out with 
the blood through the drainage tube before in¬ 
jecting Zy 2 quarts in a body of average size, it 
must not be taken for the general return flow 
from around the heart and Sup. Vena Cava, 
as many embalmers think. This is only a 
local return flow from the parts nearest the 
point of injection, the thyroid gland and the 
shoulder when iniecting through the Axillary 
or Carotids, these being the shortest circuits. 

This return flow of the fluid from the short¬ 
est circuits, which at times begins as early as 
while injecting the second pint, should not 
trouble the embalmer’s mind or stop the injec¬ 
tion, because the amount of fluid thus lost is 
always small. 


16 


DRAINING OUT THE BLOOD. 


Draining - out the blood is not necessary 
when practicing our system of embalming, ex¬ 
cept in the following cases: 

1. —Purging. Dropsy. 

2. —Obstructed circulation. 

3— Decomposition before embalming. 

4.—Full-bloodedness. When a subject was 
full-blooded in life and died suddenly in that 
condition there is from 5 to 7 quarts of blood 
in the body. As the veins cannot accommo¬ 
date this much, part of it should be drained 
out. 

Which Parts of the Body Are Drained Out 

When Draining Out the Blood From the 
Right Axillary Vein? 

This question is of the greatest interest to 
the embalmer and should be settled in this 
book conclusively. In connection with this, 
the influence that the influx of the fluid exerts 
on the outflow of the blood must be explained. 
This latter point is very much misunderstood 
because the fluid can only have an influence 
on the outflowing blood when and where it 
completes the circuit by passing from the ar¬ 
teries into the capillaries and from the capil¬ 
laries into the veins. When it thus reaches 
the veins it is bound to drive the blood, or 
rather part of it, toward the point of issue— 
the drainage tube, but when and where does 
•this take place? To determine this we have to 
take into consideration the location and the 
amount of fluid injected. 

At this juncture I should emphatically as¬ 
sert that the first three pints of fluid, in a body 
of average size, cannot help in any way the 
outflow ‘of blood, because three pints only fill 
the arteries, heart and most accessible capil¬ 
laries; apt to complete the circuit only around 


17 


the point of injection. With the fourth pint, 
however, some fluid will complete the circuit in 
the head, face and neck, and therefore only at 
this time will the inflowing- fluid have any in¬ 
fluence on the outflowing blood. Two quarts 
of fluid cannot in any way move the blood, 
that is, start it outflowing from any part of 
the body except the head and neck. 1 hree 
quarts, however, start the blood outwardly in 
the left arm, heart and lungs. Four quarts 
clear these parts of about two-thirds their 
blood contents, the head about entirely, and 
the chest wall partially. These are the only 
parts of the body from which blood is ex¬ 
tracted in the usual draining operation. 

Very little blood, usually not any at all, can 
be drawn out from the other parts of the body, 
especially when the body is in the inclined 
position, as is most commonly the case. Not 
less than six quarts of fluid are required to 
complete the circuit in the lower half of the 
body, so as to drive some blood upward 
through the Inferior Vena Cava. Assuredly 
not a drop of blood from the stomach and 
bowels can be brought out. This is owing to 
the fact that the blood, after having been 
driven out of the stomach and bowels by the 
fluid, has to force its way through the capil¬ 
laries of the liver and out through the Hepatic 
veins to reach the Inferior Vena Cava, which 
is an impossibility in the usual process of em¬ 
balming. 


A POSITIVE INDEX AS TO THE NECES¬ 
SITY OF INJECTING THE ABDOMEN. 

Whenever the abdomen is sunken in instead 
of being bloated out, there is positively no dan¬ 
ger of any trouble arising therefrom after a 
thorough arterial injection. But when the 
abdomen is found to be more or less bloated, 
especially in summer, it means that decomposi¬ 
tion has already set in or that a septic condi¬ 
tion exists, which necessitates injecting the 
abdominal cavity. 


18 



BLOOD DISCOLORATIONS. 


How to Best Remove Them. 

I will here explain a point of capital impor¬ 
tance, hitherto entirely unknown to the under¬ 
taking' profession, and which in fact I dis¬ 
covered only recently. Unsuspectingly a great 
mistake is being made bv most embalmers in 
the process of draining out the blood. This is 
the fact that the drainage tube, even when per¬ 
forated, if pushed beyond the head of the 
Clavicle (collar bone), interferes with the 
drainage and clearing up of the ear and upper 
part of the face of the right side, because it 
closes completely the opening of the External 
Jugular Vein which drains the skin of these 
parts. A great many embalmers have noticed 
time and again that they had more trouble in 
clearing up the right ear than the left one, but 
to them the cause of this has been one of the 
puzzles the embalmer has to contend with so 
often. 

Some embalmers, either through misconcep¬ 
tion or wrong instruction, push their drainage 
tube even clear to the Superior Vena Cava, un¬ 
aware that in so doing they also close the open¬ 
ing of the Internal Jugular Vein, which drains 
the blood from the deep parts of the head and 
from the skin of the face from the eye down. 
Any one can easily understand that with the 
drainage tube right in front of the openings of 
the veins which drain the face the removal of 
blood discolorations, so frequently present, 
especially in the ears, cannot be as easy as 
when the downward course of the blood is un¬ 
obstructed. I should add, however, that it is 
especially during the injection of the second 
and third quarts that those veins should be 
open, because it is during the injection of the 
second and third quarts that the fluid finds its 
way through the face, driving the blood on¬ 
ward. 


19 


The head of the collar bone stands out 
prominently at the root of the neck and can be 
seen and felt by any one. If necessary the em- 
balmer can easily measure the space from the 
axilla to the head of that bone so as to keep 
his tube back of it. 

Another point of great importance is the fol¬ 
lowing that no one has ever thought of before: 
Massaging the External and Internal Jugular 
veins downward along their course in the neck 
helps greatly in removing the discolorations of 
the face and ears, because this downward mas¬ 
sage empties these veins of their blood con¬ 
tents. It goes without saying that these veins, 
which drain the face, have to be voided of their 
contents, when full, before any more blood can 
be driven into them. Begin this massaging on 
the face along the ear and back of the ear be¬ 
cause this is the course of the two principal 
branches of the External Jugular vein. Then 
follow by massaging the ear and you will ob¬ 
tain the desired results. Confining massage to 
the face has been a mistake to this day. 


COAGULATION OF THE BLOOD. 

Certain agents going around claim that the 
fluid they sell does not coagulate the blood, 
and that all, or nearly all other fluids do co¬ 
agulate it. They carry supposed samples of 
fluid from five or six different manufacturers, 
even of the best known, and, when visiting the 
undertakers, pour some of these fluids in test 
tubes containing oxblood to show the results. 
Then they make the same test with their own 
fluid to show different results. The poor un¬ 
dertaker, not knowing anything about the 
chemistry of fluids or of their physiological 
action, listens benevolently to that sly and gull¬ 
ing talk and wonders whether that is true or 
not. He has been so humbugged before that 
now he cannot distinguish a crook from an 
angel. In fact the devil is known to have the 
smoothest tongue. To protect the unwary 
undertaker I will here settle the question rad¬ 
ically. 


20 



To come to the point, is there any fluid on 
the market which can coagulate the blood in 
the capillaries? I never saw any that could 
do it, and do not believe there is any. If there 
were the sale of it should be prohibited by 
law; but the fact is that there is no fluid that 
can coagulate the blood in the capillaries, for 
the very obvious reason that it cannot 
mingle with the blood in the capillaries, these 
being much too narrow to permit the mixing of 
the two. 

I made a test on a discolored body with a 
thirteen per cent, solution of formaldehyde, 
which is stronger than can or should ever be 
used for arterial injection, and still this failed 
to coagulate the blood in the capillaries. Of 
course if the arteries were partially filled with 
blood certain fluids, when injected therein, 
would cause it to coagulate, but the presence 
of blood in the arteries is a very rare occur¬ 
rence. The presence of blood in the capil¬ 
laries of the face, however, is a very common 
occurrence, but the fluid usually drives this 
blood into the veins before it can coagulate. 

In fact the blood can only be coagulated in 
the veins, not in small veins even, but veins of 
fairly large size. Furthermore, the coagulat¬ 
ing process in the veins is always slow, be¬ 
cause the mixing of the fluid with the blood in 
such narrow tubes is always slow. Pouring 
fluid into a test tube partly filled with so-called 
blood, where the mixing is very easy, is vastly 
different from forcing fluid into the capillaries 
where mixing is impossible. 

Now what does it matter if the fluid coagu¬ 
lates the blood in the veins? In reality it is 
a good thing when it does, because then the 
blood cannot flow back into the capillaries and 
cause a black face, for the simple reason that 
coagulated blood cannot circulate. 

Therefore all that talk about fluids coagulat¬ 
ing the blood in the capillaries is “all rot.” 
Vulgar as this expression is, it characterizes 
better than any other words those deceptive 
arguments calculated to blind the unwary un¬ 
dertaker who hungers for the truth* 


21 


DISINFECTION OF THE BLOOD. 


How Is the Blood Best Disinfected? 

I do not share in the advocacy of injecting 
fluid into the veins to disinfect the blood. It 
is considerable extra work to do so and very 
few embalmers care to assume the task. More¬ 
over, I question the necessity of resorting to 
such a practice because the blood is much bet¬ 
ter and much more uniformly disinfected by 
injecting a sufficient quantity of fluid into the 
arteries. In fact, the arterial injection disin¬ 
fects the blood in two different ways, as fol¬ 
lows : 

First, the walls of the veins have capillaries 
as well as all other tissues of the body, and 
the fluid gets there by the arterial way as to 
all other parts. This disinfects the blood suf¬ 
ficiently in the small veins, and to some extent 
in the big veins. Second, when the arterial in¬ 
jection has filled all the capillaries of the body 
with fluid the latter flows from the capillaries 
into the small veins, and from the small veins 
into the big veins where it mingles with the 
blood, the large veins having tributary 
branches all along their courses. 

Hence all the veins of the body receive fluid 
from the arterial injection, whereas only a few 
can receive any from a venous injection, be¬ 
cause the veins are mostly filled with blood 
that the fluid, to find its way in, has to dis¬ 
place and drive onward before itself. 


22 


INJECTING A WEAK SOLUTION BE¬ 
FORE THE EMBALMING FLUID. 

Its Advantage and Disadvantage. 

The practice of injecting a weak solution in 
the arteries before the real embalming fluid is 
widespread though its advantage be counter¬ 
balanced by a disadvantage. The question is 
of such a great importance and interest to the 
undertaking profession that I will here analyze 
it from its very bottom. 

The object sought by that procedure is to 
wash out the tissues before causing rigidity. 
The idea is good and the object accomplished 
provided that not less than a quart of that solu¬ 
tion be injected. At this point, before going 
any further into the question, I should remark 
that the majority of those who practice this 
method do not understand it fully, as many of 
them stated to me that they injected only a 
pint of that weak solution. Assuredly those 
who only inject a pint to accomplish the object 
sought are not sufficiently acquainted with the 
anatomical conditions, because not a teaspoon¬ 
ful of the first pint can find its way to the face, 
for which it is intended, except in small bodies. 
They do not realize that the first fluid injected 
cannot but follow the most direct course, and 
that furthermore its most direct course leads to 
the broadest arteries, into which it flows most 
readily, and which it must fill up before it can 
force its way through the narrow arteries and 
capillaries of the face. The direct course of 
the fluid when using the Axillary Artery is 
both the Ascending and Descending Aorta and 
the Left Subclavian Artery leading to the left 
arm. The Ascending Aorta leads into the left 
chambers of the heart; the Descending Aorta 
into the lower big arteries. 

The fluid can never penetrate into the capil¬ 
laries until arterial tension has been produced. 


23 


To produce arterial tension the arteries and left 
chambers of the heart have to be filled up, and 
one pint does not fill them. One pint only fills 
the big arteries and heart. A second pint will, 
however, produce a slight arterial tension, as 
now the fluid penetrates in the small arteries, 
and this tension will be sufficient to force some 
of the solution into the nearest and most ac¬ 
cessible capillaries,—those of the face and neck. 
Therefore it is safe to say that when injecting 
only one pint in a body of average size, not a 
teaspoonful of it finds its way to the face, 
which is the sole object of the whole procedure. 

This settles one phase of the question, and I 
will now take up the other side and explain the 
disadvantage of the procedure. 

The users of this method agree that the weak 
solution has no preserving action, but they 
claim that it is driven out through the drainage 
tube by the embalming fluid injected after¬ 
wards. This claim is all wrong and positively 
unfounded. It should be emphatically stated 
that, in the wav embalming is usually done, not 
one-twentieth part of that weak solution can 
be driven out through the drainage tube. If, 
for instance, the injection is made through the 
Axillary Artery, only about ohe-fourth of the 
part of that weak solution that goes through 
the right shoulder, neck and head, will com¬ 
plete the circuit through the capillaries, veins 
and the drainage tube. The bulk of the solu¬ 
tion, which goes down to the other parts of 
the body, can never be brought back, even by 
injecting six quarts on top of it. The arteries, 
capillaries and veins below the neck will ab¬ 
sorb as much as six or seven quarts of fluid, 
before yielding any or very little through the 
drainage tube. This point is not sufficiently 
realized by the profession at large. 

Some of that weak solution, however, but 
not more than one-tenth of it, that is to say, the 
part that reaches the veins through short cir¬ 
cuits, could be made to gravitate towards the 
drainage tube by raising the 'lower part of the 
body higher than the level of the shoulders and 
keeping it in this position for several hours. 
But where is the embalmer who will go to such 
a trouble? All the more so that this is im¬ 
practicable in private residences. Furthermore, 
this position of the body interferes with the 


24 


circulation of the fluid toward the legs and 
causes fluid congestion and puffiness in the 
face. 

1 herefore that weak solution, which cannot 
preserve, remains in the body and fills the place 
that should be occupied by a good preserving 
fluid. If, however, the embalmer injects plenty 
of strong fluid, on top of that weak solution he 
may feel safe, but if he confines himself to two 
quarts he is doomed to meet with frequent 
failures, unless he injects the abdomen thor¬ 
oughly with concentrated undiluted fluid. 

The Advantage of Using a Strong Fluid Caus¬ 
ing But Little Rigidity in the First In¬ 
jection. 

To realize the advantage of using a strong 
fluid causing but little rigidity in the first in¬ 
jection one must bear in mind the three follow¬ 
ing points: 

1. —That the first two quarts of fluid injected 
have to do most of the work of preservation, 
because the subsequent quantity injected ' 
drives them foremost into the capillaries. 

2. —That it is in the capillaries that the 
whole work of preservation is to be accom¬ 
plished, because the capillaries are a dense net¬ 
work very closely interwoven with the fibres 
of the flesh. Their walls, being extremely 
thin, permit the fluid to exert its preserving 
action on the flesh without escaping from the 
capillary walls. 

3. —That the last quart injected remains in 
the arteries and left chambers of the heart al¬ 
most wholly, therefore having but little pre¬ 
serving action. 

Conclusion.—Therefore, when the first fluid 
injected, which is to accomplish most of the 
work of preservation, causes but little rigid¬ 
ity it can easily penetrate and saturate the 
entire mass of flesh; and when such a fluid is 
at the same time a very strong disinfectant and 
preservative it effects a thorough disinfection 
and insures permanent preservation. 

Hence if a strong fluid can be found that will 
accomplish the same results as a weak solu¬ 
tion and disinfect at the same time, the same 
advantage will be gained without the disad¬ 
vantage. If you never heard of such a fluid, 
my dear embalmer, see Paraform through the 
index. 


25 


TISSUE GAS. 

Facts That Should Be Known to All Em- 

balmers. 

What is tissue gas? In what part of the 
microscopic anatomy does it develop and col¬ 
lect? Why is it impossible to aspirate it ex¬ 
cept very imperfectly? These various points 
have never been fundamentally explained, and 
must be described here to enable the embalmer 
to understand the condition present, and what 
is to be done to meet the case. Tissue gas is 
the product of flesh decomposition, and has no 
relation whatever with intestinal gas, which is 
the product of fermentation of the contents of 
the bowels. The embalmer can easily cope 
with the intestinal gas; not so with tissue gas. 
One can aspirate intestinal gas, but very little 
of the tissue gas. 

In order that the embalmer may understand 
well the above questions, it is indispensable 
that he should have a clear conception of the 
construction of the tissues, as described in the 
following: 

The whole mass of soft tissue of the body 
is made up of layers, and each of these layers 
itself consists of other slender layers of cells 
and fibres. All these layers are in intimate con¬ 
tact, flattened, as it were, on top of each other. 
Each muscle forms a layer by itself. The skin 
is a layer by itself, consisting of two coats— 
the scarfskin or epidermis, and the true skin 
or cutis. The walls of the stomach and bowels 
have four layers or coats from beginning to 
end. The wall of the abdomen, from the skin 
to the internal lining or peritoneum, has not 
less than six principal layers, without count¬ 
ing the network of capillaries and lymphatics 
in them. This includes the skin, fat, several 
muscles and the peritoneum. All these layers 
are loosely connected by other very slender 
layers of connective tissue. 

In addition to that, we must bear in mind 
that all these layers and every organ are made 
up of an infinite number of cells and fibres, 
so small that they can only be seen under the 
microscope, and that every one of these cells is 


26 


separated from the other cells by a very slen¬ 
der film of areolar tissue, (a form of connective 
tissue.) 

Now, my dear embalmer, if you have that 
.well in mind, the next question is, Where does 
tissue gas develop and in what part of the 
minute anatomy does it collect? It develops in 
the interstitial spaces, that is to say, in that 
loose areolar tissue. In other words, it col¬ 
lects between the various layers of tissue and 
between the individual cells, forming vesicles 
of gas varying in size from one fiftieth of a 
pin’s head to a pea, which later, by coalescence, 
may grow to the size of a pigeon’s egg. When, 
after a body has been dead for forty-eight 
hours or longer, the skin is found to “slip off” 
under the pressure or rubbing of the em- 
balmer’s fingers, it means that gas has already 
formed there and collected between the two 
layers of the skin, loosening the scarfskin from 
the true skin. This is the reason why, in such 
a case, the scarfskin comes off so easily. Blis¬ 
ters forming in the skin are not always water, 
but often gas. 


Why Is Disinfection So Difficult in the Pres¬ 
ence of Tissue Gas? 

Tissue gas is continuous over large areas, 
but broken up, as already stated, into an in¬ 
finite number of minute pockets or subdivi¬ 
sions, like vesicles or bubbles, inclosed in a 
film of areolar tissue. To better realize what 
tissue gas is, take, for instance, a bottle partly 
filled with water and shake it well. You will 
then see through the water a great number of 
minute bubbles which gradually rise to the 
top. Imagine an accumulation of such vesicles 
filled with gas, pressed close together so as to 
form a layer between the capillaries and the 
tissue cells, and you will have a true picture 
of the condition present in the body in the 
case of tissue gas. 

The fact that this mass of gas is so sub¬ 
divided into minute vesicles explains why it 
cannot be aspirated, except to some extent in 
parts which contain a distinct accumulation 
thereof. 


27 


A great misconception exists among em- 
balmers in regard to the gas present in the 
chest cavity. The general idea is that gas may 
be collected there in large pocketfuls, as in the 
bowels, and that it can be aspirated from there 
as well as from the bowels. Tissue gas is the 
only gas which can develop in the chest cavity, 
and it develops in the lung tissue especially. 
There it forms in small vesicles, as stated 
above, varying in size from l-50th of a pin’s 
head to a pea, which, days or weeks later, may 
grow to the size of a pigeon’s egg. The tro¬ 
car, by aspiration, can only bring out the gas 
contained in the vesicles it breaks through. 

Now, to come to the point, the embalmer 
must realize that, in order that the fluid may 
exert its full preserving action on the flesh, 
the capillaries containing the fluid must be in 
intimate contact with the tissue cells. They 
are not in contact when tissue gas is present, 
because as already stated, this gas is collected 
in the loose areolar tissue between the capil¬ 
laries and the tissue cells. This is what, in 
such a case, renders the task of disinfection 
and preservation so difficult and elaborate. 

How to Recognize Tissue Gas. 

The next important question to the em¬ 
balmer is, What are the outward signs indi¬ 
cating the presence of tissue gas? This leads 
to the question, What is the odor arising from 
a dead body? This odor is simply tissue gas 
finding its way out. But, in fact, gas begins 
to form in the tissues from two to forty-eight 
hours before it can find its way out, so that it 
will be present there long before it can be de¬ 
tected by its characteristic odor. 

In all diseases attended with fever tissue gas 
formation begins at death just as the heart 
ceases functioning. In certain cases, espe¬ 
cially in septicemia, peritonitis, typhoid fever, 
typhus fever, scarlet fever, puerperal fever, yel¬ 
low fever, diphtheria, croupous pneumonia, 
cholera, bubonic plague and smallpox, when the 
heart becomes so feeble that it cannot propel 
the blood to all parts of the body ,tissue gas 
begins to form even before death in the skin 
and other parts where the circulation ceases 
one or several hours before death. This ac- 


28 


counts for that ‘‘slipping off” of the epidermis 
soon after death. 

The signs indicating the presence of tissue 
gas, given by order as they appear, are as fol¬ 
lows : 

1. A marked or excessive bloating of the 
abdomen. 

2. A distended and abnormally resounding 
chest. 

3. Swelling of the neck. 

4. Skin-slip. 

5. Later, the characteristic odor. 

A distended abdomen means that tissue gas 
is present not only in the abdominal cavity, but 
also in and between the various layers of the 
abdominal wall. Tissue gas also forms in the 
bowels from the intestinal tissue, and thus min¬ 
gles with the intestinal gas. A bloated abdo¬ 
men, however, unless associated with some 
other sign, is not a positive or invariable symp¬ 
tom of tissue gas because the bowels may be 
extremely distended with intestinal gas alone. 

The distension of the chest is not very ap¬ 
parent, but, upon knocking thereon, it is found 
to be more resonant than normal, due to an 
accumulation of gas therein. 

The neck becomes swollen from two causes. 
First, gas forms and accumulates there because 
the skin is more loose than in any other part 
of the body. Second, because the apexes of 
the upper lobes of the lungs, already distended 
with gas and air, are crowded clear up into 
the neck by the gas pressure from below, 
especially the pressure from a distended abdo¬ 
men, which crowds the lungs upward. If the 
fingers of the embalmer are pressed on this 
swollen neck they will evolve a light, crepitat¬ 
ing or crackling sound, and percussion will 
evolve a light-hollow sound, or at least a sound 
much less dull or full than in the absence of 
gas. 

The third sign of the presence of tissue gas 
is the loosening of the' epidermis or scarfskin, 
which, as commonly said, “slips off” under the 
fingers of the embalmer. 

The last and later sign of tissue gas is the 
characteristic odor of decomposition. 


29 


How to Treat the Case. 

Now, the vital question, How to treat a body 
when tissue gas is present, which means that 
decomposition has already set in: 

In this connection remember that it is easy 
to prevent decomposition from setting in, but 
that it is difficult to stop it when it has already 
set in. The latter can be done only by radical 
means. Proceed as follows: 

1. Aspirate the gas from the abdomen by 
thrusting your trocar into the descending colon, 
and, if necessary, into the tranverse and ascend¬ 
ing colon. (When the abdomen is greatly dis¬ 
tended the gas should be let out before the ar¬ 
terial injection.) 

2. Drain out the blood by means of the 
drainage tube in the Axillary vein. 

3. Inject arterially from four to five quarts 
of a formaldehyde fluid, or as much as the body 
will absorb in forty minutes. 

4. Puncture thoroughly with the trocar all 
parts swollen with gas, especially the neck, to 
the extent of making four punctures to the 
square inch. Then press upon the part with 
the fingers. This will release most of the tis¬ 
sue gas. 

5. In addition inject one or two bottles of a 
concentrated formaldehyde fluid undiluted into 
the abdominal cavity. Fluid diluted as for ar¬ 
terial injection will not do in this case; it has 
to be full strength. 

6. When the skin is found to “slip off” it 
should be bathed with a formaldehyde fluid. 
This will prevent further gas formation therein, 
hence further loosening of the epidermis. 

In most cases the chest cavity may be in- f 
jected by way of the throat by passing a rub¬ 
ber tube through one of the nostrils, or through 
the mouth before the arterial injection. In this 
case a half pint of concentrated fluid will suf¬ 
fice. Injecting the lungs in this way, however, 
is liable to cause frothing from the mouth or 
nose on the following day, as explained further 
in the article on frothing. 

A body treated in this way will never turn 
bad and you can sleep in peace. The em- 
balmer who cannot recognize the presence of 
tissue gas and is stingy with his fluid is doomed 
to be a failure in his profession. 


30 


DECOMPOSITION SETTING IN BEFORE 

DEATH. 


The Necessity of Treating a Dead Body Ac¬ 
cording to Its Condition—A Uniform 
Rule to Be Condemned. 

A point of capital importance upon which 
I cannot lay too much stress, is the fact that 
certain bodies begin to decompose before 
death, and that many patients are choked to 
death by tissue gas and a bloated abdomen. 
How many embalmers know this to be a fact? 
I venture to say very few.' It should, how¬ 
ever, be known to all. Undertakers have not 
the opportunity of studying patients before 
they die, because their duties only begin at 
death, but I, as a physician, have had unusual 
opportunities in hospitals and elsewhere to 
study the physical conditions of patients in 
the last days of life. I also have had the op¬ 
portunity of dissecting bodies that I had un¬ 
der observation before death. 

Every embalmer should bear in mind that 
in all cases in which decomposition began be¬ 
fore death, a not uncommon occurrence, the 
formation of tissue and intestinal gases can¬ 
not be controlled by the ordinary embalming; 
such bodies have to be treated more thor¬ 
oughly. On such occasions especially the em¬ 
balmer should fully realize that while certain 
bodies can be kept with two quarts of fluid 
in the arteries, others necessitate from four 
to six quarts besides injecting concentrated 
undiluted fluid in the abdominal cavity. After 
reading the following explanation I hope that 
no embalmer will make the mistake of adher¬ 
ing to a uniform rule as to the quantity of 
fluid he should use regardless of the condi¬ 
tion in which the body is. 

In certain cases the agony of the sick is 
prolonged for days or even weeks. When 
this occurs the heart becomes gradually 
weaker and weaker until it can no longer pro- 


31 


pel the blood to all parts of the body. This 
means that the .circulation stops in certain 
parts long- before death, a time which varies 
from a few hours to a few days. The parts 
in which the circulation ceases first are the ex¬ 
tremities and the skin of the whole body ex¬ 
cept that of the head, neck and shoulders. 
Time comes that only the lungs and heart are 
alive, and barely so, the circulation of the 
blood having stopped in all other parts, and 
this condition may last from one to twelve 
hours. It occurs that the legs, arms, skin and 
certain parts of the abdomen have been dead 
for 24 or 48 hours before the last expiration. 
Bacterial life begins as soon as animal life 
ceases. The oxygen of the blood being the 
only thing which prevents the growth of the 
bacteria of putrefaction, it is clear that de¬ 
composition will begin in the parts in which 
the circulation stops, though the rest of the 
body may still be alive. This accounts for the 
“slipping” of the skin in certain bodies soon 
after death. The peritoneum, omentum and 
the walls of the bowels also often begin to 
decompose before death. 

In such cases, tissue gas having formed ex¬ 
tensively long before death, plenty of fluid 
must be injected arterially, and one or two 
bottles of concentrated undiluted fluid, our 
“Glacial" cavity fluid preferably, be injected 
into the abdominal cavity. Moreover, to pre¬ 
vent skin-slip, which is unavoidable in such 
cases no matter what fluid is used, because 
the scarfskin has already been loosened from 
the true skin by the gas formed between these 
two layers, the skin should be bathed with a 
strong fluid, such as “Glacial” or Ozoform, 
half and half with water. 

The embalmer who does not heed this lesson 
and gets a skin-slip or bloating of the abdomen 
after embalming should only blame himself. 
A body in which tissue gas is present cannot 
be disinfected sufficiently by arterial injection. 
The abdomen and the skin must absolutely be 
treated as stated above. The embalmer should 
realize that he has a duty, a real duty to per¬ 
form, and that it is too easy and a very cheap 
excuse to blame his failures on the fluid when 
he does not inject enough of it to reach all 
parts of the body, or fails to inject the pure 


32 


concentrated fluid in the abdomen when neces¬ 
sary. 

Learn this lesson by heart, my dear em- 
balmer, and you will never have any failures. 


THE VARIOUS CAUSES OF THE FACE 
TURNING BLACK. 

Draining Out the Blood Rendered Unneces¬ 
sary. 

As is well known, the face turning black, 
either before or after embalming, is the result 
of a back flow of blood from the veins to the 
capillaries. Normally the veins can hold and 
retain all the blood, except in full-blooded 
bodies, but there are causes which interfere 
with their capability of retaining it. One of 
the principal causes is a formation of gas in 
the big veins from decomposition of the blood 
by the Bacillus Albus Cadaveris. This gas, 
to make room for itself, displaces the blood 
and forces it back into the most accessible 
capillaries, which are those of the face and 
neck. The next most common cause of the 
face turning black is a strong formaldehyde 
fluid used in the first injection, and here are 
the two reasons: 

1. —When a strong formaldehyde fluid is in¬ 
jected at the outset, the muscles, becoming 
rigid early, press upon the veins and reduce 
their capacities. 

2. —The veins, like the arteries, have a layer 
of circular muscular fibres in their walls, which 
under the action of a strong formaldehyde 
fluid, contract and narrow the lumen of the 
veins. 

When thus narrowed and compressed by 
rigid muscles the veins cannot hold more than 
half of the amount of blood they contain other¬ 
wise, and consequently, part of it is forced 


33 



back into the most accessible capillaries, such 
as those of the face, neck and ears. This ac¬ 
cident is bound to occur whenever there is 
much blood in the body and this is not drawn 
out. Such a thing, however, does not happen 
when the first fluid injected does not reduce 
the capacity of the veins by causing excessive 
rigidity. 

A profuse formation of gas in the abdomen 
is also .a cause of a back flow of blood to the 
face, because a distended abdomen exerts an 
upward pressure upon the Inferior and 
Superior Venae Cava and heart. This pres¬ 
sure forces the blood contents of these ves¬ 
sels upward. This occurrence can be pre¬ 
vented by injecting in the abdomen a full bot¬ 
tle of concentrated undiluted fluid after letting 
out the gas. 

Purging from the lungs is another cause of 
the face turning black. By enumeration we 
therefore find four causes of a back flow of 
blood to the face, viz.: 

1. —Formation of gas in the veins. 

2. —Purging in the chest. 

3. —A profuse formation of gas in the abdo¬ 
men. 

4. —The use of a strong formaldehyde fluid 
in the first injection without draining out the 
blood. 

The new system of embalming that I in¬ 
augurated two years ago, and which is de¬ 
scribed further on in reference to Paraform, 
does away with three of these causes, and the 
fourth cause is taken care of by a bottle of 
“Glacial” in the abdomen. The great major¬ 
ity of embalmers dislike horribly to drain out 
the blood, because it is an irksome task and 
takes up much time. For the benefit of these 
embalmers, and to summarize matters into a 
nutshell, I should give the positive assurance 
that if a minimum of three quarts of fluid are 
injected in the arteries and a bottle of “Glacial” 
in the abdomen they can safely dispense with 
draining out the blood, except in dropsy, full¬ 
bloodedness, want of circulation, and early 
fluid purging. This procedure simplifies the 
task of embalming considerably. 


34 


DISCOLORATIONS. 


A Description and Causes of All Discolorations 

Which May Appear On Dead Bodies-— 
Bacterial Colors. Chemical Colors. 

Disease Colors and Blood Colors. 

I will here explain the various discolorations 
observed on dead bodies, at times before, at 
others after embalming, many of which have 
to this day puzzled the embalming world. 

1. The most common discolorations is the 
presence of blood in the capillaries, blood 
which failed to flow into the veins at death 
and stagnates in the skin of the face, ears, 
neck, etc. The causes which retain this blood 
in the skin are the following: Congestion, 
local inflammation or disease, bruises or other 
injuries, full-bloodedness, and alcoholism. 
These discolorations can usually be removed 
by the arterial injection aided by massage. 

2. As to the face turning black one or sev¬ 
eral days after embalming, which is the worst 
mishap that may befall the undertaker, it is due 
as is well known, to a back flow of blood from 
the veins into the capillaries of the skin. Many 
explanations so far given of the causes of this 
back flow have only been mere suppositions. 
The various causes of this occurrence have 
been given in the preceding article, the 
most common one being the formation of 
gas in the big veins, produced by the Bacillus 
Albus Cadaveris, which decomposes the blood. 
When an insufficient amount of fluid is in¬ 
jected arterially it does not reach the veins, 
and, therefore the blood therein is not disin¬ 
fected. As a natural consequence gas forms 
there, and this gas has to displace the blood 
in order to make room for itself. The capil¬ 
laries of the face and neck, being the most 
capable of dilatation, are the most easily in¬ 
vaded. This never occurs when a sufficient 
quantity of fluid is injected to reach the veins 
and produce arterial tension by filling all capil¬ 
laries. 


35 


3. It is well known among - bacteriologists 
that certain bacteria, technically called 
“Chromogenic bacteria,” produce a color. 
Each kind of these bacteria has the power of 
producing a definite color. For instance some 
produce green pus, others yellow pus, others 
blue pus, and still others white pus. Certain 
bacteria produce a color without pus, and the 
color they produce varies according to the 
medium in which they grow. These are the 
kind which can produce abnormal colors be¬ 
fore embalming, such as greenish, brown, pur¬ 
plish or lemon color. These same discolora¬ 
tions also appear soon after an imperfect em¬ 
balming. 

4. The abnormal colors which have been 
observed many a time hours or days after em¬ 
balming are the result of chemical incompati¬ 
bility between the particular fluid used and 
the toxin present in the tissues. The greenish 
color produced by a formaldehyde fluid in 
jaundice cases is too well known to’ deserve 
more than a passing mention. This greenish 
color results from the effects of formaldehyde 
on the bile-pigments. 

5. When the skin turns dark, black or cop¬ 
pery it indicates the presence in the skin of a 
certain bacterial toxin which, under the influ¬ 
ence of light and temperature, becomes 
oxidized (chemically allied with oxygen taken 
from the air by absorption). 

6 Discoloration of the lips. —It occurs fre¬ 
quently that one or two days after embalming 
the lips turn black. What is the cause of it? 
It was only by means of the microscope and 
chemical analysis that I was able to discover 
the real cause of this phenomenon, which I 
will explain as follows: The lips have a 
greater blood supply than any other tissue of 
the body except the lungs. This is due to the 
fact that the capillaries in the lips are both 
extremely minute and extremely dense, the in¬ 
terspaces between them being only 1-2200 of 
an inch and their diameter about 1-3000 of an 
inch. For this reason the blood, at death, can¬ 
not withdraw from this tissue as completely as 
it does from the other tissues of the body, and 
what remains therein becomes oxidized from 
the oxygen of the air. This is made possible 


36 


only by the fact that the covering of the lips is 
no real skin, but only epithelium, which is as 
thin as the scarfskin. 

To prevent this oxidation and blackening of 
the lips, see Balmrose, per index. 

7. The black color appearing on dead 
bodies in an advanced state of decomposition 
is that of decomposing blood driven into the 
capillaries of the skin by the gas forming in 
the big veins. 

8. In typhus fever, commonly known as 
“Spotted Fever/’ a rash, or eruption of red 
spots, appears on the body, especially the 
face, chest and abdomen. This rash, being 
hemorrhagic, does not disappear at death and 
no fluid or massage can remove it, but a 
strongly colored fluid may even up the color. 

9. The peculiar color produced by yellow 
fever, which, at death, may be found to be a 
yellow, olive or mahogany tint, I shall explain 
as follows: The yellowness, which appears in 
the first stage of the disease and becomes more 
and more pronounced as the disease pro¬ 
gresses, is a jaundice resulting from the en¬ 
trance of bile into the circulation, and the de¬ 
posit of bile-pigments in the skin. The pri¬ 
mary cause of jaundice in yellow fever is the 
swelling and fatty degeneration of the liver. 
The olive color which sometimes occurs dur¬ 
ing the second or third stage, is an alteration 
of the yellowness caused by uremia, the kid¬ 
neys being seriously inflamed the urea is not 
excreted and mingles with the bile-pigments 
in the blood. The mahogany color at times 
seen results from the admixture of a third ele¬ 
ment—free heamoglobin or blood-pigment, 
which, owing to the destruction of the red- 
blood corpuscles, separates from the latter, 
combines with the blood-serum and appears in 
the skin from cutaneous hemorrhages. 

The colored fluid I manufacture can remove 
the yellowness and improve the olive color, but 
'cannot alter that mahogany color. 


37 


10. Purpura.— Local, but more or less ex¬ 
tensive discolorations of the skin, red, yellow, 
brown or black, are rather common, and re¬ 
sult from extravasation of blood in the skin 
before death. This is technically termed “pur¬ 
pura/’ These discolorations are really hem¬ 
orrhages into the skin. In certain diseases 
various parts beneath the skin or in the skin 
itself become diseased and this results in the 
rupture of capillaries therein and consequent 
oozing of blood into or beneath the skin. This 
blood being no longer in the circulatory sys¬ 
tem coagulates and stagnates there. If death 
ensues before that blood has been reabsorbed 
by the lymphatics, the discolorations remain 
to puzzle the undertaker and they grow 
rapidly darker or black. These purpuric dis¬ 
colorations vary in size from spots to large 
patches, and have been observed especially in 
the following diseases: Chronic rheumatism, 
septicemia, pyemia, typhus fever, scarlet fever, 
measles, smallpox, malignant endocarditis, 
snake bites, and, more rarely, in certain cases 
of Bright’s disease, Hodgkin’s disease, scurvy, 
tuberculosis and debility of old age. 

Patients dying of scarlet fever are always 
badly discolored, and these discolorations, be¬ 
ing extravasated heamoglobin from the blood, 
cannot be removed satisfactorily by the arterial 
injection; external applications are necessary 
to improve the complexion sufficiently. 

The so-called “chemical changes” which 
take place in the dead body are not really 
chemical changes but a bacterial transforma¬ 
tion. When animal life leaves the body bac¬ 
terial life takes its place immediately unless a 
thorough embalming is done, and the body 
grows into a mass of bacteria, every bit of 
flesh becoming bacteria. The only real chem¬ 
ical change which can take place in a dead 
body is the oxidation of its surfaces, especially 
the lips, under the influence of light, air and 
temperature. It is by oxidation that the lips 
turn black, and it is also by oxidation that the 
drying tissues of the other parts of the body 
in later stages, turn black. The lips turn black 
sooner because their covering is greatly 
thinner than the skin. 


38 


OBSTRUCTED CIRCULATION. 


The failure to obtain a free circulation is so 
rarely due to the presence of blood-clots in the 
arteries that this case is hardly worth con¬ 
sidering'. Furthermore, blood-clots could not 
affect the general preservation because they 
can only obstruct one or two minor arteries. 
Clots lodging in the Facial arteries would, 
however, affect the complexion of the face, and 
therefore this eventuality must be considered. 
The liability of the Facial arteries getting 
clogged up can arise only from using the 
Femoral to inject the fluid, because from the 
Femoral artery to the face there is quite a dis¬ 
tance for the fluid to travel, and along this 
course clots may be picked up and carried 
along. When injecting the Axillary, Brachial 
or Radial, however, such an occurrence is im¬ 
possible, because if any clots happen to be on 
the tract between the point of injection and the 
Carotids, the first half-pint of fluid will pick 
them up and carry them along to just where 
the first pint goes, that is, down the Ascending 
and Descending Aorta. The first fluid injected 
can never ascend the Carotids; this should be 
stated in no unmistakable terms. For a more 
detailed statement see the article on “Injecting 
a weak solution.” 

The failure to obtain a free circulation is 
due to one or several of four causes, namely: 
a clogged up tube, arterio-sclerosis in very old 
bodies, the use of a strong formaldehyde fluid 
in the first injection, and the presence of blood- 
clots. 

By far the most common of these four causes 
is a tube clogged up with foreign matter or 
blood-clots. Therefore, whenever you find 
great resistance to your pumping, make it a 
rule to first examine your tube. 

The most common of the other causes, as far 
as I know, has never been mentioned by any 
one before, and, for this reason, I wish to lay 
special stress upon it. I directed my studies 
and experiments on this subject only recently. 


39 


A physiological fact unknown to embalmers 
and never taught in embalming schools, is that 
the nerves and muscles do not die at “death”, 
for they survive yet for a time. What we call 
“death” after expiration is not the death of the 
tissues, but a complete functional inertia from 
want of circulation of blood. It is the blood 
alone which keeps the tissues active. As soon 
as it ceases circulating the tissues cease func¬ 
tioning and become inert, but they are not 
dead, for they are capable of stimulation by 
electricity or formaldehyde. In fact the tissues 
die only when the nuclei of their cells disin¬ 
tegrate from decomposition. 

Now to understand what follows let us 
state that the walls of the arteries and veins 
contain a layer of circular muscular fibres and 
that these fibres are under the immediate con¬ 
trol of the vaso-motor nerves. These nerves, 
by stimulating the muscular fibres cause con¬ 
traction, narrowing of the lumen of the ar¬ 
teries and veins, thus keeping up the blood- 
pressure in the living body. What occurs 
during life through nervous impulses from the 
brain occurs after death through the powerful 
stimulation of a strong formaldehyde upon 
these vaso-motor nerves. The only difference is 
that now, instead of blood-pressure we have 
fluid-pressure, and this pressure is all the 
greater that the formaldehyde is stronger. 
What occurs then is just what occurs during 
life. The vaso-motor nerves in action stim¬ 
ulate the muscular fibres of the arterioles into 
contraction. Formaldehyde being a powerful 
irritant, and certain nervous systems being 
more susceptible to its action than others 
(the same is true of other drugs), those’most 
susceptible will excite such contractions as to 
close the arterioles, and thus stop the circula¬ 
tion early. 


40 



Small Artery and Vein Magnified. 

A.—Artery. V.—Vein, 
a.—Adventitial coat, 
m.—Muscular coat, 
e.—Endothelial elastic coat. 

By the same action, but later, the muscles 
becoming rigid do not yield readily to the on¬ 
ward pressure of the fluid in the capillaries. 
Contrarily to general ideas, however, the rigid¬ 
ity of the muscles cannot shut up the capillary 
circulation entirely because the fibres of the 
muscles are longitudinal, whereas the mus¬ 
cular fibres of the arterioles are circular. This 

Hence a mild formaldehyde fluid should be 
used in the first half-gallon to avoid that un¬ 
timely and excessive contraction of the mus¬ 
cular fibres of the arterioles. It is quite safe, 
however, to use a stronger formaldehyde fluid 
in the second half-gallon. 

When you fail to obtain a free circulation my 
advice is to inject the abdominal and chest cavities 
thoroughly with concentrated fluid, bathe the skin 
with fluid and pack the mouth with cotton impreg¬ 
nated with fluid. Nothing is gained by injecting the 
brain, unless the body is to be shipped across the 
ocean. 


41 








HOW TO RECOGNIZE JAUNDICE. 


It is very important to distinguish a yellow 
complexion from the yellowness of jaundice, 
because the quantity of Coloring Compound 
required to just beautify a yellow complexion 
will not suffice in yellow jaundice, and the 
quantity required for yellow jaundice might 
make the face too pink in the absence of real 
jaundice. 

An ordinary yellow complexion is natural, 
though it becomes more marked at death, is 
darker than yellow jaundice, and the color of 
the face is always somewhat different from 
the color of the rest of the body. 

On the other hand the yellowness of 
jaundice, which is due to the presence of bile- 
pigments in the skin, is a strong lemon color 
uniform throughout the body. This yellow¬ 
ness is also very plain and strong in the white 
of the eyes, and makes the differentiation easy, 
for in the case of yellow complexion the whites 
of the eyes can only be faintly yellow. There¬ 
fore look into the white of the eyes to recog¬ 
nize jaundice. 

For the removal of the yellowness of jaun¬ 
dice, see page 91. 


42 


FROTH IN THE MOUTH OR NOSTRILS 
MISCONCEIVED CAUSES. 

A misconception of many embalmers, which 
should by all means be corrected, is the idea 
that froth issuing' from the mouth of a dead 
body means every time that there is gas forma¬ 
tion in the lungs or stomach and that the froth 
is itself gas. While it is true that gas and 
froth will result from decomposition it is not 
less true that froth may appear in the mouth 
and nose in the complete absence of decom¬ 
position. In fact this occurs quite often in the 
case of drowned persons when the body has 
not been long in the water. In such cases 
froth at times appears in the mouth and nostrils 
from twelve to twenty-four hours after the 
body has been embalmed, even if the embalm¬ 
ing has been done early and very thoroughly. 
Very often the same thing occurs when fluid 
has been injected into the lungs through the 
mouth or nose. 

What is the real cause of that frothing? 
This is a matter of physiology and I will give 
the explanation physiologically. The last ex¬ 
piration does not expel all the air from the 
lungs; far from it. In fact from one to three 
pints of air remain in the lungs after death. 
The trachea (wind-pipe) and the bronchi re¬ 
main completely filled, and the bronchioles 
and small air-vessels partially so. Water or 
fluid running down the trachea after expira¬ 
tion imprisons this air left in the bronchi and 
bronchioles. Subsequently when the embalm¬ 
ing is done, the fluid from the arterial injection 
fills the lungs under pressure to about 
their full capacity. This filling up of the 
lungs places the bronchioles under pressure, 
and the air in them is gradually but very 
slowly squeezed out. The water or fluid in 
front of this air is already mixed with the 
mucus always present in the lungs, which ren¬ 
ders it consistent enough to permit of bubble 
formation. The air having to pass through it 
carries along an envelope of that mucous fluid 
and appears at the point of issue in the form of 
froth. 


43 


A LESSON ON BACTERIOLOGY. 


There are three orders of life in this world, 
or, to be strictly accurate, life as a whole is 
made up of three stages, namely; animal life, 
vegetable life and bacterial life. . The bacterial 
order has been represented as belonging to 
vegetable life, but it is so different in form, 
growth and purpose that it must be regarded 
as an independent order. The animal and 
vegetable bodies are multicellular, that is, made 
up of a vast agglomeration of cells. The bac¬ 
terial order is uni-cellular, consisting of a sin¬ 
gle cell. 

In the natural course of things those three 
orders of life prey and feed upon each other. 
The animal family feeds on vegetables and, 
incidentally, eats and digests many billions of 
bacteria a dav, because bacteria are in and on 
everything and cannot be avoided. Finally 
when animal life has run its course the bac¬ 
teria take hold of its remains, absorb them, 
the body becomes a mass of bacteria; this mass 
resolves itself into soil, the vegetable family 
absorbs from the soil these cast off elements of 
life, turns them into eatables, the animal fam¬ 
ily feeds on these eatables and transforms them 
again into animal flesh. This is in fact a per¬ 
petual go-round, merry or not merry. 

Were it not for bacteria the dead animal or 
vegetable matter would only dry up and never 
decompose. As a consequence the soil, not 
getting back the vital principles it gave out,- 
would soon become exhausted and sterile, and 
its sterility result in the extinction of life. 
Hence those three orders of life, animal, bac¬ 
terial and vegetable, are inter-dependent and 
indispensable to each other. They in reality 
form a chain of three links which, if broken, 
would mean extinction to all three. 

But there cannot be transmutation without 
death. That is to say, in order to transmute 


44 


from animal to bacterial life we have to die, 
and to transmute from bacteria to vegetable 
our bacterial life has to end, and to transmute 
from vegetable to animal life the vegetable 
dies, is eaten up, digested, absorbed and trans¬ 
formed into flesh anew, its former state, to, 
later, die again and thus go round indefinitely. 
Hence, strictly speaking and looking at nature 
in its crudest form, we live three successive 
lives—animal, bacterial and vegetable. Our 
bacterial life is an intermediate transition, and 
only a means of transmutation from animal to 
vegetable life, and our vegetable life is also a 
transitory stage, a means of getting back to 
animal life, to which flesh could return in no 
other way. 

This is a bare scientific fact; not a theory, 
but a crude fact, strictly natural metamorpho¬ 
sis. I realize that life and bacteriology were 
never explained in this way before, and, no 
doubt, superficial observers will call this a 
queer way of looking at things, but it is never¬ 
theless truer than anything ever written. 

Animal life was the primary, ultimate and 
sole object of the Creator, but to make the 
existence of animal life possible he created the 
vegetable and bacterial orders,—the vegetable 
to support it and bacteria to permit of its reju¬ 
venation or renaissance by decomposition and 
recomposition. This expression “decomposi¬ 
tion and recomposition” fits best in the case 
and represents strictly the truth, though it 
could also be properly termed “decomposition, 
vegetation and re-incarnation.” The whole 
process from beginning to end is a matter of 
cell activity and animal chemistry, in contra¬ 
distinction with ordinary chemistry. 

So far the historians have divided nature 
only into animal and vegetable kingdoms. The 
bacterial kingdom, however, must be recog¬ 
nized, and given a place in natural history, 
if I have to be the first one to place it 
there, as a realm by itself. The bacterial king¬ 
dom is entirely independent of the animal and 
vegetable kingdoms, though closely related. 
Both of the latter, in order to become reju¬ 
venated, have to shed their old dust into the 
bacterial kingdom through the portals of death. 


45 


Bacteria Classified. 


Bacteria, microbes, germs, micro-organisms, 
parasites, fungi, schizomycetes, germ life and 
germ-flora, are all synonyms and mean the 
same thing. There are three principal mor¬ 
phological species of bacteria, namely: T he 
“coccus,” plural “cocci,” which is spherical in 
form; the “bacillus,” plural “bacilli,” which is 
a straight rod, and the “spirillum,” plural 
“spirilli,” which has the form of a twisted rod. 
Some bacteria have flagellae,—slender, whip¬ 
like processes, which give them some motility, 
though not belonging to animal life. 

Bacteria are colorless bodies, consisting of a 
single cell. They vary in diameter from 1-250 
to 1-40,000 or an inch. The largest are the 
bacillus of Tetanus (lock-jaw), the bacillus 
Cadaveris (decomposing the Cadavers), and 
the spores of Anthrax. The smallest are the 
bacilli of Influenza and Proteus Vulgaris. 

Bacteria are divided into two principal 
classes, namely: Pathogenic and saprophytic. 
Pathogenic means causing disease, that is to 
say, attacking the living body, or, to be strictly 
exact, developing in and from living tissue, de¬ 
composing living tissue. Saprophytic means 
not causing disease. 

The pathogenic bacteria cause a focus of dis¬ 
ease in one or several particular parts of the 
living body. The disease thus caused, though 
localized, may affect the whole system, because 
the germs produce a virus or toxin which is 
absorbed and passes into the general circula¬ 
tion. When this poison reaches the brain it 
gives rise to fever and aches and, by depress¬ 
ing the brain, may affect all internal organs. 
Furthermore, the small bacteria themselves 
may be absorbed either through the capillaries 
or lymphatics and reach the general circula¬ 
tion. In this case they are apt to form other 
focuses of disease in different parts of the 
body. 

Saprophytic bacteria, on the other hand, do 
not cause disease because they are capable of 
development only in and from dead animal and 


* 


46 


vegetable matter. They cannot develop in liv¬ 
ing tissues because of the presence of oxygen 
in the blood. “Saprophytes” is a general name 
applied to ali bacteria whose function it is to 
reduce all dead organic matter to soil. 

But while I say that this class of bacteria 
cannot cause disease it must be added that if 
taken in in partially decomposed food, or if 
growing with abnormal rapidity in sluggish 
bowels from ordinary food, they can cause a 
more or less serious sickness technically called 
“auto-intoxication.” These germs produce a 
toxin, which, though less virulent, is more 
abundant, than that produced by disease-germs 
,and, when absorbed, causes quite a serious 
sickness manifested by fever and head¬ 
ache. The alkaloids developing from tainted 
meat, and usually called “ptomaines,” are a 
toxin or saprophytic product, and “ptomaine 
poisoning” means intestinal absorption of pto¬ 
maines. 


VARIOUS SPECIES OF BACTERIA. 
Magnified 1,200 Times. 



Bacilli of Pneumonia 




&/ % 




Bacilli of Septicemia 



Micrococcus 

Prodigiosus 

(Decomposing all 
food-stulTs) 



Bacilli of Malignant } 
GEdema 



Bacilli of Hog 
Cholera 

Bacilli of Influenza 

(Grip) 

■=0r 

Bacilli of Lepra 


47 



Bacilli Cadaveris 

(Decomposing- the 
cadavers) 


Bacilli Cadavers 

(Decomposing the 
cadavers) 


Bacilli of Erysipelas 



Bacilli of Diphtheria 



Bacilli of Tubercu¬ 
losis 



Bacilli of Typhoid 
Fever 



Bacilli of Typhoid 
Fever 

(Flagellated form) 



Bacilli Pyocyaneus 

(Pus forming organ¬ 
isms) 



Bacilli of Anthrax 

(Spore forming) 



Bacilli of Sympto* 
matic Anthrax 



Bacilli of Sympto¬ 
matic Anthrax 

(Flagellated form) 


Bacilli of Syphilis 



Bacilli of Tetanus 

(Lockjaw) 


48 


The growth of saprophytic bacteria is in¬ 
hibited (checked) by cold, whereas that of the 
pathogenic germs is not; disease germs thrive 
in winter as well as in summer. Both kinds 
thrive equally well at the normal temperature 
of the body, and the growth of both is inhibited 
by a temperature higher than normal heat. A 
temperature of 105 degrees F. kills them in a 
few hours; 104 degrees in from twenty-four to 
forty-eight hours, and 102 or 103 degrees in 
from seven to nine days. The fever is not 
caused directly by the disease or the germs, 
as the people generally believe, but is a reac¬ 
tion of nature, the weapon of nature, in fact, 
to fight the disease or kill the germs, and the 
more virulent the toxin of the disease the 
greater the reaction, hence higher the fever. 
For instance in scarlet fever the high tempera¬ 
ture of the second and third days kills the 
germs outright and the disease subsides on the 
fourth or fifth day. In typhoid fever the ba¬ 
cilli are killed on the 7th, 8th or 9th day, but 
the body is so saturated with the toxin of’the 
disease that the fever and stupor of the patient 
persist yet for several days. In tuberculosis 
the tubercle bacilli are not killed by the fever 
because the temperature rarely rises above one 
hundred degrees. 

The moulds that grow on the skin some 
cime after death are a species of saprophytic 
bacteria. The yeasts are also a special order 
of bacterial cells, which when mixed with far¬ 
inaceous pastes, grape juice or malt, produce 
gas, which process is known as fermentation 
of the juice, brew or paste. When the paste is 
placed in the oven the yeasts, under the first 
influence of heat, throw out a large quantity 
of gas, causing the paste to swell up, which 
process is known as “leavening of bread/’ The 
subsequent stronger heat kills these bacteria 
just in time to prevent an extreme ballooning 
of the bread. 

Certain classes of saprophytes are very use¬ 
ful and play a great part in human life, and 
might be called “domestic bacteria.” Many 
phenomena occurring in daily life and not real¬ 
ized by the people are really the work of these 
bacteria. For instance, buttermilk and sour 
milk are the result of fermentation induced by 
the bacillus Factious, which is always present 


49 


in the air. Vinegar is the result of fermenta¬ 
tion induced by the bacillus Aceti, also always 
present in the air. Alcohol in wine or cider 
is the result of fermentation induced by the 
yeasts in the sugar of the juice. So is the 
leavening of the bread, as already stated. The 
appetizing taste and odor of cheeses are the 
result of fermentation induced by various bac¬ 
teria. Strictly speaking, all the odors arising 
from these various substances are gases pro¬ 
duced by bacteria. Rancidity is also a fer¬ 
mentation induced by zymogenic bacteria. 

The saprophytes, whose task it is to reduce 
all dead matter into its original elements, are 
everywhere,—in the air, water, soil, and on or 
in the food we take. And there is such a 
power of growth in them that every moist ar¬ 
ticle of food exposed and all dead organic mat¬ 
ter become their prey. Only the combination 
of certain chemicals can prevent their action. 
Millions are in every mouth, which decompose 
the particles of food lodged between the teeth, 
givfng rise to odor. Those that are swallowed 
with the food are digested and undergo the 
fate of the food. An idea can be gained of the 
rapid and effective work of these bacteria from 
the fact that in less than twelve hours they 
totally decompose and liquefy the shreds of 
meat lodged between the teeth. 



50 


BACTERIA AND DISINFECTANTS. 


A Lesson in Chemistry. 

The bacteria most interesting to undertakers 
are the bacilli of cadaveric decomposition and 
those of intestinal putrefaction, namely: 

Bacilli of Flesh Decomposition. 

1. Bacillus Albus Cadaveris (White bacil¬ 
lus of cadavers). Decomposes the blood of 
cadavers and produces gas. 

2. Bacillus Citreus Cadaveris (Yellow 
bacillus of cadavers). Decomposes the flesh 
and produces tissue gas. 

3. Bacillus Saprogenic. Causes general 
putrefaction and produces tissue gas. 

4. Bacillus Mirabilis. Causes general putre¬ 
faction and produces tissue gas. 

Bacilli of Intestinal Putrefaction. 

Bacillus Coli Communis (Colon-Bacillus) 
produces fermentation, putrefaction and gas. 

Bientock's Bacillus Putrificus, causes putre¬ 
faction and gas. (These are the two bacilli 
which produce the intestinal gas. Their spe¬ 
cial task is to decompose all food-stuffs that 
the intestines do not absorb. The intestinal 
gas is a by-product of this decomposition.) 

The degree of resistance offered by bacteria 
to the action of disinfectants varies according 
to the species of the germs and the chemical 
components of the disinfectant. Certain 
species of bacteria are killed by a particular 
chemical compound and not by others. Again, 
different bacteria require disinfectants of dif¬ 
ferent strengths to be destroyed. 

A common error of insufficiently experienced 
chemists is to combine several strong chemi¬ 
cals for the purpose of producing a disin¬ 
fectant of high power. Many undertakers 
themselves are attempting the same thing, un¬ 
aware that all strong chemicals, when mixed 
together, either neutralize, decompose or coun¬ 
teract each other. Chemicals are either corn- 


51 


patible or incompatible with each other. 
When incompatible they cannot combine in 
any way, and, if mixed, they will form a use¬ 
less or dangerous mixture. If compatible 
they still have to be mixed in certain given 
proportions to permit of chemical union. 
Chemical union means “forming a definite 
compound,” in which the elements are chem¬ 
ically bound together. For instance, water 
is a definite compound, consisting of two parts 
of hydrogen and one part of oxygen by weight; 
in chemical terms, “two atoms of the former 
and one atom of the latter." Hydrogen and 
oxygen are two gases, but when chemically 
combined they form water. But while two 
atoms of hydrogen combine so well with one 
atom of oxygen, three atoms of the former 
connot combine with either one or two atoms 
of the latter, chemical union between them be¬ 
ing impossible. On the other hand, two 
atoms of hydrogen combine well with two 
atoms of oxygen, though the resulting com¬ 
pound is not water, but the well known perox¬ 
ide of hydrogen, which is also a definite com¬ 
pound. Again, if another chemical be mixed 
with peroxide of hydrogen, this compound 
will be chemically broken and its antiseptic 
action destroyed or modified. If a new chem¬ 
ical union takes place in the mixture we will 
have an entirely different compound with an 
entirely different action, which may be inert 
or poisonous. The same is true of every dis¬ 
infectant. 

As an instance of absolute chemical incom¬ 
patibility I should mention formaldehyde and 
peroxide of hydrogen. When these two chem¬ 
icals are mixed in any quantity the peroxide 
of hydrogen is decomposed into water and free 
oxygen, that is to say, one of the two atoms 
of oxygen is liberated and reassumes its gas 
form. What is the result? If the mixture be 
placed in a bottle sealed air-tight, this gas ac¬ 
cumulates therein until its pressure causes the 
bottle to explode, and this explosion takes 
place in from six to forty-eight hours. If, 
however, either the formaldehyde or peroxide 
of hydrogen is greatly diluted the generation 
of oxygen gas may not be sufficient to cause an 
explosion, but if injected arterially or in the 


52 


abdomen it is liable to give rise to swelling. 
Any one can make this test by mixing pure 
formaldehyde with pure peroxide of hydrogen, 
filling a small bottle with about half of each, 
and sealing it. The fuller the bottle the 
sooner the explosion takes place. This lib¬ 
eration of oxygen is made still more active by 
the presence of alcohol in the embalming 
fluid. 

Nothing can show greater ignorance of 
chemistry than the mixing of bichloride of 
mercury with formaldehyde. The two are 
absolutely incompatible, and the action of the 
former is entirely nullified by the latter. 
Moreover, the bi-chloride of mercury is thrown 
out of solution shortly after. 

Formaldehyde is a very good disinfectant, 
but, for embalming purposes, it should always 
be used only as an adjunct, never alone; its 
action must be modified and mollified by other 
chemicals combined with it. If used alone it 
gives a repulsive appearance to the face, inter¬ 
feres with the removal of the discolorations, 
and, owing to the rigidity it produces, it can¬ 
not pervade, hence disinfect, the whole flesh. 
Furthermore, as formaldehyde cannot and 
should not be used of a greater strength than 
4 to 8 per cent., it cannot destroy certain kinds 
of bacteria. The destruction of many has to 
be accomplished by other chemicals combined 
with the formaldehyde. 

All bacteria and disease germs are killed by 
a disinfectant or embalming fluid containing in 
combination the proper chemicals in com¬ 
patible strength, provided enough of the fluid 
be injected to reach them all. 


53 


AUTOPSY CASES. 


In “posted” bodies in which only the stom¬ 
ach and bowels have been removed without 
injuring- the Abdominal Aorta an arterial in¬ 
jection can be made as usual after ligating the 
three branches of the Aorta which supply the 
stomach and bowels. These are the Celiac 
Axis, and both the Superior and Inferior 
Mesenteric Arteries. When, however, the cir¬ 
culatory system has been broken by. the re¬ 
moval of the heart the task of the embalmer 
is twice as great and preservation more liable 
to be imperfect. In such a case, to insure 
preservation, one has to inject the limbs and 
head individually and pack the cavities. The 
task is long and tedious, and many embalmers 
are liable to neglect part of it for want of time. 

This is where our “Glacial" fluid plays a 
great part by its osmotic penetrating proper¬ 
ties. It insures preservation without arterial 
injection for a space of time far beyond the 
funeral day, if used as follows: 

Inject a whole bottle pure in the abdomen. 
If the bowels have been removed put in some 
cotton packing to retain the fluid therein. 
Then take another bottle of Glacial, pour about 
a tablespoonful of it into the mouth, then pour 
some in a cup and with it bathe the skin of the 
whole body except the face. Finally inject the 
balance of the bottle into the chest cavity. 
If the face is to be given a good complexion in¬ 
ject from half to a pint of a regular arterial 
fluid through the Carotids upward. If not, 
the face can also be bathed with Glacial, di¬ 
luted one half. 

“All “posted" bodies embalmed in this way 
have kept invariably well. If, however,, such 
bodies are to be shipped to quite a distance it 
is advisable to inject the limbs individually, 
either arterially or beneath the skin by means 
of a small bulb syringe. 


54 


HELPFUL SUGGESTIONS 


Which Should Be Learned By Heart. 


To embalm a body judiciously and properly 
always take into consideration : 

% 

1. The cause of death. 

2. The condition in which the body is. 

3. The season. 

4. The length of time the body is to be 
kept before burial. 

Remember that a formaldehyde fluid used 
hot causes much more rigidity than if used cold. 

When you cannot get a circulation always 
examine your tube before thinking the cause 
may be in the arteries. 

If you want the fluid to do its work use it 
right and in sufficient quantity. 

To produce a uniform appearance on the face 
the fluid has to be evenly distributed, and only 
a sufficient quantity can produce an even dis¬ 
tribution. When only two quarts are 
injected the circulatory system is not half full, 
and in the next 24 hours the fine complexion of 
the face has often faded away because the fluid 
from the face has gravitated away to parts de¬ 
void of it. 

Remember that the embalmer who, as a 
routine, injects three or four quarts of fluid 
in the arteries and one bottle of concentrated 
undiluted fluid in the abdominal cavity, will 
never have a single failure, and his invariable 
success will make his reputation. 


55 


Remember that the massaging, to best re¬ 
move the discolorations from blood stagnating 
in the capillaries, should be done before and 
while injecting the first two quarts. After 
that it is too late. 

Remember that the most common cause of 
the face turning black, either before or after 
embalming, is gas formation in the veins, which 
drives the blood back into the skin. You can 
always prevent that by injecting enough fluid 
to reach the veins and disinfect the blood 
therein. 

0 

Remember that when the bowels are greatly 
distended by gas, as evidenced by bloating, 
their capillaries are closed to the arterial in¬ 
jection, and that in such a case the abdomen 
can only be disinfected by a cavity injection. 

Remember that if you want three quarts 
of fluid in the tissues you have to inject four 
quarts, and if you want two quarts in the tis¬ 
sues you have to inject three quarts, because 
the last quart does not reach the capillaries, 
but remains in the arteries and heart, from 
where it exerts no disinfecting action on the 
flesh. 



56 




REGULAR PROCEDURE FOR A THOR¬ 
OUGH EMBALMING. 


1. Wash the body if need be. 

2. Sponge the body with fluid diluted as for 
arterial injection. Remember that the body of 
a woman, especially in summer, is liable to 
smell from the vagina. Give attention to this 
part. The arterial injection will not kill this 
odor because it arises from the secretions of 
the vagina. 

3. Shave, if necessary. 

4. Bathe the face with glycerine and water 
equal parts, or any massage preparation. 

5. Inject from one to four ounces of fluid 
into the mouth or through the nose to disinfect 
the mouth, throat, trachea and bronchi. In 
bad cases use our ‘'Glacial” fluid pure. 

6. Set the chin-rest or stitch the jaw. 

7. Close the eyes properly. 

8. Get ready for your injection; be sure 
that your arterial tube is not clogged up, and 
do not forget to expel the air from your rub¬ 
ber tube before connecting it with your ar¬ 
terial tube. 

9. Drain the blood in all cases of full¬ 
bloodedness, obstructed circulation, dropsy, 
and early fluid-purging. 

10. Rub the lips with “Balmrose” to pre¬ 
vent their turning black and keep them soft. 

11. If there are any blood discolorations in 
the face or ears try to massage them away with 
cold water and glycerine equal parts, or any 
massage preparation, while you inject your 
first two quarts. If you do not succeed, try 
with hot water. You will learn by experience 
that some of these discolorations are better re¬ 
moved with cold applications and others with 
hot water. 


57 


12. If you use our colored fluids remember 
that the rosy tint should appear on the face 
after injecting - three pints. If it does not you 
should add about one-third of a tubeful of 
Coloring to the fourth pint, and also add some 
Coloring to the second half gallon. 

13. Give due attention to the abdomen; if 
much gas is there let it out or aspirate it, and 
inject some concentrated undiluted fluid. 

14. To keep the skin soft and retain the fine 
complexion given to the face, the immediate 
step after the arterial injection is to rub the 
face and ears with Balmrose. This prevents 
excessive hardening of the skin, favors an even 
distribution of the fluid, and leaves a pleasant 
odor. 

15. For abnormal cases, such as jaundice, 
dropsy, tissue gas formation, etc., see their re¬ 
spective chapters through the index. 


A Strong Reason Why a Minimum of Three 
Quarts Should Be Injected Arterially. 

When only two quarts are injected the cir¬ 
culatory system is hardly filled to one-third 
of its capacity. The skin of the face and neck, 
however, get a good supply of fluid from the 
first two quarts. But, as many parts of the 
body are devoid of fluid when only two quarts 
have been injected, the fluid from the face 
gravitates away to the parts devoid of it, or 
into the nearest veins, if these are partially 
empty. Hence, the beautiful complexion that 
our Coloring gives may partly disappear in the 
next twelve hours as the fluid withdraws from 
the face. 

Therefore to produce and retain the most 
beautiful complexion three quarts must be in¬ 
jected arterially in small bodies, and four 
quarts in larger bodies. 

Furthermore, the rosy tint produced by our 
fluid is not usually as uniform from two quarts 
as from a larger quantity. If pink streaks ap¬ 
pear on the face after injecting only two quarts 
the embalmcr should only blame himself. 


5S 



DISEASES OF THE VEINS. 

1. Phlebitis,—inflammation. 

2. Yarix or varicose veins. This is an en¬ 
larged, elongated, tortuous, knotty condition 
of the Long Saphenous Vein and its branches. 
It always begins and is most marked in the 
legs below the knee, but often extends to the 
thighs. Very rarely do other veins become 
at'fected in this way. The immediate cause of 
this condition is the absence or destruction by 
disease of the valves of the vein. The func¬ 
tion of these valves is to support the upward 
flow of the column of venous blood. When ab¬ 
sent the entire weight of the column of blood 
falls upon the walls of the vein, causing their 
dilatation and elongation, often resulting in 
breaking out, which is then called a varicose 
ulcer. 

THE THREE DEGENERATIONS OF THE 

ARTERIES. 

1. Sclerosis (loss of elasticity of the arter¬ 
ies, resulting in hardening of their walls). Be¬ 
gins in middle life and is most marked in old 
age. 

2. Atheroma--chronic inflammation of the 
inner coat of the arteries, resulting in fatty de¬ 
generation. Occurs in adult life, most com¬ 
monly from such diseases as alcoholism, 
syphilis, gout, rheumatism and Bright’s dis¬ 
ease. 

3. Calcification (lime salts depositing and 
crystallizing in the walls of the arteries). This 
is in fact, an aggravation and later stage of 
Atheroma, in which the .cheesy masses calcify. 
Occurs in later life. 

LOCAL DISEASES OF THE ARTERIES. 

1. Arteritis (inflammation). 

2. Thrombosis (blood-clot forming at an 
obstructed point). 

3. Embolus (a mobile blood-clot). 

4. Aneurism (great local dilatation of an 
artery). 


59 


WHAT NECESSITY IS THERE TO INJECT THE 

BRAIN? 


There seems to be a misconception among em- 
balmers, which, I suppose, originated from misunder¬ 
stood teaching, I found that, when a free circula¬ 
tion cannot be obtained, many embalmers endeavor 
by strenuous means to inject fluid into the brain 
besides injecting the other cavities. Is it necessary 
to inject the brain in such a case? This is quite an 
important question, and I am going to solve it in my 
own way with arguments supported by evidence. 

[ say it is totally unnecessary to inject the brain 
in such a case unless you want to keep the body 
much longer than the usual time. It is rather hard 
to get there with the trocar and it does no good. 
Why? Because the bacteria can never invade the 
brain tissue rapidly enough to give rise to odor in 
ten days in summer and twenty days in winter. 

The brain, it must be remembered, is the part of 
the body least exposed to the invasion of bacteria. 
All parts of the body except the brain can be rapidly 
invaded by continuity, but the brain is inclosed in 
a tight box and can only be invaded by continuity 
through small openings technically called “fora¬ 
mina.” The largest opening is the Foramen Mag¬ 
num, which gives passage to the origin of the spinal 
cord, known as Medulla Oblongata. 

The process of decomposition begins as follows: 
First in the abdomen, then in the lungs, thirdly in 
the blood, and fourth in the skin. 

Bacteria can invade the brain only through the 
small openings already mentioned or through the 
blood, and, after death, the brain tissue is devoid 
of blood. At death the blood collects in the sinuses 
of the skull, which sinuses are in fact the veins of 
the brain. But these sinuses are not in the brain 
proper. They are between the skull and the brain, 
and it is therefore from the periphery that the bac¬ 
teria have to invade the brain tissue. The brain 


60 


tissue has the smallest supply of blood of the whole 
body, and stands in contrast with the thyroid gland 
which has the greatest supply. 

If bacteria are present in the blood at the time 
of death some will be present in the sinuses of the 
skull, where the blood is collected, but these sinuses 
are in the periphery of the brain. For these various 
reasons you will find as a foregone conclusion that 
both the invasion and proliferation of bacteria in the 
brain tissue, either by continuity through the open¬ 
ings of the skull or by way of the blood, can only 
be very slow. 

Of course you may say that the blood in the sinu¬ 
ses may decompose and give rise to odor. To this 
I will answer that decomposition in a tight box is a 
great deal slower than in the soft parts which can 
undergo free expansion from accumulation of gas. 


WHAT QUANTITY OF FLUID IS REQUIRED TO 
PRESERVE A BODY OF AVERAGE SIZE. 

In my relations with the undertakers I found a 
vast diversity of opinions and practices in that re¬ 
gard, some injecting as much as seven quarts in 
summer and six quarts in winter, while others 
would confine themselves to two quarts in every 
season. In order to determine accurately and 
judiciously the amount of fluid required to disinfect 
a body we must know what parts of the body, or 
rather which capillaries of the body are reached by 
each quart successively. In this connection we 
must remember that only the fluid present in the 
capillaries can preserve the flesh. The fluid which 
remains in the arteries and heart only preserves the 
arteries and heart. 

After making this remark I will give you the re¬ 
sults of experiments made with my colored fluid to 
show what parts of the body are reached by vari¬ 
ous quantities of fluid. In these experiments I 
found that when injecting the Axillary or Brachial 
artery the first pint reaches no capillaries. That 
the second pint in many cases begins to show its 
color on the face and ears, and sometimes in the 
left hand. That the second quart goes entirely into 
the face, neck, left arm and internal organs. I 


61 



found that after injecting these first two quarts the 
face and neck had their full supply of fluid; that the 
left arm and shoulders were filled to about half 
their capacity, the internal organs to about one- 
third their capacity, and that the capillaries of the 
lower limbs, right arm and central parts of the 
brain were entirely devoid of fluid. I found that 
after injecting three quarts the capillaries of the 
lower limbs and brain were partially but very im¬ 
perfectly reached by the fluid. After injecting four 
quarts some fluid, however, was perceptible in the 
muscles of the calves of the legs and most parts 
of the brain. It goes without saying that the right 
arm is never sufficiently disinfected without inject¬ 
ing downward. 

These results tend to show that four quarts of 
fluid are necessary to obtain a fair degree of pres¬ 
ervation in a body of average size, and, if the blood 
has been drawn out, these four quarts will not even 
fill the body to one-half its capacity, because the 
veins alone can hold four quarts. 

These experiments were made possible and plain 
only by using a highly colored fluid, in which I 
added three times the normal proportion of the col¬ 
oring I manufacture. 

To conclude on this subject I must repeat here 
what I have said to so many embalmers: You can¬ 
not preserve a body of average size with two quarts 
of fluid in the arteries, for the obvious reason that 
only the fluid which permeates the capillaries can 
preserve the flesh. When you inject only two 
quarts you get only one quart in the capillaries be¬ 
cause the last quart injected always remains in the 
arteries and heart, from where it has no preserv¬ 
ing action on the flesh. 

I wish to also impress upon you the necessity of 
injecting more fluid in bodies dead of septic or in¬ 
fectious diseases than in those dead from accident, 
old age, or tuberculosis. Why? Because in such 
cases the production of gas is much greater and 
more rapid. Typhoid and scarlet fevers, peritonitis, 


62 


puerperal fever of childbirth, and diphtheria are the 
most common infectious diseases. In all such cases 
the abdomen should be treated with concentrated un¬ 
diluted fluid, injecting therein one or two bottle of it. 

All embalming schools and all authorities, profes¬ 
sors and writers on embalming say and repeat time 
and again: “You cannot keep a body with two 
quarts of fluid.” Still, there are embalmers who per¬ 
sist in only using two quarts as a rule. I say you 
can keep “certain” bodies with two quarts in winter, 
but it is not safe to try it, unless you are well experi¬ 
enced in determining the conditions present in such 
bodies. At any rate this cannot be called perfect 
embalming. 



63 


HOW TO DETERMINE AND LOCATE THE PRES¬ 
ENCE OF GAS IN THE ABDOMEN. 


In my relations with the embalmers I found that 
many of them could not make out the presence or 
absence of gas in the abdomen. Or, when gas was 
present, they could not locate it. When I say the 
presence or absence of gas, please do not misunder¬ 
stand me. I mean the presence or absence of con¬ 
siderable gas, because in either living or dead body 
there is no abdomen without gas. In the body of 
an adult, even when the abdomen is sunken in, 
there is from two to four quarts of gas. 

I have heard many embalmers say: “There is no 
gas in this body,” when in fact there were six or 
seven quarts in it. After embalming, when the fluid, 
has made the abdominal muscles rigid, the abdomen 
always sounds like a drum under percussion, which 
invariably indicates the presence of gas. 

I also found that when the abdomen was swollen 
up many embalmers could not determine whether 
the swelling was due to the presence of gas or 
water, or to a certain proportion of each. 

I noticed that some would try to make it out 
by palpation, that is by striking the abdomen with 
the palm of the hand or fingers. I should say this 
is a wrong and very deceptive procedure. 

The only way to determine and locate the pres¬ 
ence and quantity of gas is by percussion, that is 
to say, by placing the middle finger of the left hand 
on the various parts of the abdomen and striking 
upon it with the fingers of the right hand. This 
will produce a hollow sound, almost like the sound 
of a drum, wherever there is gas. This sound can 
only be produced by knocking upon a hard body 
like the finger, and never by knocking on the soft 
wall of the abdomen. The presence of gas is still 
more noticeable after embalming, because the ab¬ 
dominal wall is then rigid and tense. 

The next question is this: “In what parts of the 
abdomen are we likely to find gas?” I should an¬ 
swer most emphatically that you will always find 
it along the course of the Colon. Naturally, when 
gas is present in large quantity, such as in septic 


64 


cases, you will find it all over, in the small intes¬ 
tine as well as in the Colon. 

The Colon in fact circles the abdomen. It has 
three subdivisions, namely, the Ascending Colon, 
the Tranverse Colon and the Descending Colon. At 
the beginning of the Ascending Colon is a large 
pouch known as the Cecum. This pouch, which is 
just above the groin, is always more or less filled 
with gas. I might add, in the way of fun, that the 
tail-end of the Cecum is better known than the 
Cecum itself. In fact, it is known to everybody, 
to the non-professional as well as the professional, 
and known all over the world. I mean the famous 
vermiform appendix. But please don’t look for gas 
in the appendix. 

The central and left parts of the Transverse 
Colon and the lower end of the Descending Colon 
are always more or less filled with gas. 

I suppose you all realize how important it is to 
know how to make out the presence of gas and its 
location in order that you may direct your trocar 
to the right spot to aspirate it. 

When the abdomen appears to be full, and per¬ 
cussion upon it produces a dull sound instead of a 
hollow sound like a drum, it means you are striking 
upon water or fat. If it is a lean body you can be 
sure the fullness is due to the presence of water, 
but if it is a fat body it can only be ascribed to the 
fat. 

The next thing would be how to differentiate be¬ 
tween water and a tumor when the abdomen ap¬ 
pears rather full and produces a dull sound under 
percussion, but this would be going into the ques¬ 
tion too deeply, as you are not expected to diagnose 
a case as well as a doctor. 


65 


WHAT AMOUNT OF PRESERVATION CAN BE 
OBTAINED FROM APPLYING A FLUID 
ON THE SKIN? 

To realize the amount of preservation you can ob¬ 
tain in this way you have to remember that there 
is no absorption beyond the skin where there is no 
blood circulation. The skin of the living body ab¬ 
sorbs readily and the blood which circulates through 
it takes up and carries along whatever the skin 
absorbs. Thus all non-astringent liquids and oils 
are easily absorbed by the skin when applied with 
friction. Water and glycerine are the substances 
most rapidly absorbed when rubbed on. 

But in the dead body you can only disinfect the 
skin by external application or rubbing, because 
there is no blood circulation and the skin is cold. 
Cold contracts the skin and thereby interferes with 
absorption. Heat produces the opposite effect and 
favors absorption, but only in the living body. 


THE EFFECT OF DRY AIR ON TISSUE PER* 

MEATED WITH A FORMALDEHYDE FLUID. 

I have repeatedly observed that in dry weather a 
formaldehyde fluid has an unusually hardening ef¬ 
fect on the skin of the face. This hardening effect 
is much less marked in rainy weather. Any close 
observer will notice the same phenomenon. For a 
time I could not account for that, and had to study 
the subject very carefully. Finally I came to the 
conclusion that a damp atmosphere relaxes the 
skin, permitting the pores to remain more or less 
open, and in fact producing a moist skin. It is this 
relaxation and moisture which counteract the effect 
of formaldehyde, the moisture itself diluting the 
fluid in the superficial capillaries. This hardening 
effect does not occur when the first fluid injected 
contains but little formaldehyde. 


66 



I found, however, that it was an easy matter to 
counteract the action of formaldehye in any kind 
of weather. A mixture of glycerin and water, half 
and half, applied or rubbed on the face either be¬ 
fore or during the injection of the first two quarts, 
will suffice to prevent the hardening of the skin. 


ABOUT DROPSICAL CASES. 

In the case of dropsy the waters of the body, if 
not thoroughly drawn out, not only weaken the em¬ 
balming fluid, but also stand as an obstacle to its 
circulation. In order to obviate this great disad¬ 
vantage the waters have to be drawn out as well 
as possible. This can be done in three different 
ways. Firstly, by draining out the blood, because 
as you drain out the blood you also drain out some 
water. Secondly, by aspiration in the parts which 
contain an accumulation of water. Thirdly, by 
pricking the skin all over the swollen parts, and 
then using compression by means of gauze band¬ 
ages tightly applied. Gauze bandages will at the 
same time squeeze out the water and permit the 
escape of it. 

In addition to that plenty of fluid should be in¬ 
jected in the arteries, and at least one bottle of con¬ 
centrated undiluted fluid in the abdomen. 

To draw the water from the skin the Baunscheidt 
instrument is by far the best pricking machine. 
With it one can prick the whole body in a very short 
time as it has from 20 to 30 needles. It can be 
bought for a few dollars at many dealers in surgical 
instruments. That instrument is manufactured to 
produce counter-irritation on sick patients, but it 
answers the purpose of a pricking machine admir¬ 
ably. 


67 



A FEW DISCOVERIES MADE BY MEANS OF 

OUR COLORING. 

The coloring in our fluid has been the means of 
making various interesting discoveries, of which I 
will make a brief mention. 

1. I discovered that the abdomen cannot be dis¬ 
infected by arterial injection when it is greatly 
bloated. Why? Because, as I stated elsewhere, 
the walls of a distended bowel cannot admit the 
fluid, their capillaries being greatly narrowed or 
obliterated by the stretching. The results from the 
stretching of the bowels are exactly the same as 
those from the stretching of a rubber tube. The 
more you stretch the more narrowed is the lumen. 

I repeated the experiment several times with a 
bowel inflated to distension. Every time I could 
see the colored fluid circulating through the small 
arterial branches, but I observed that none at all 
could penetrate the capillaries, where disinfection 
is to be accomplished. 

2. I discovered that the tissues nearest the point 
of injection absorb much more of the fluid than 
those of more distant parts. For instance, if you 
inject the Axillary or Brachial artery, the upper 
part of the body, especially the face, absorbs more 
of the fluid than if you inject the Femoral. By in¬ 
jecting the Femoral most of the fluid is absorbed by 
the internal organs, and less of it gets to the face. 
This fact is made very plain by the colored fluid. 
When we inject the Axillary or Brachial the face 
gets a full supply of fluid as shown by the pink 
color appearing there. But if we inject the same 
amount of fluid by the Femoral with the same de¬ 
gree of color the face becomes much less pinkish. 
To obtain the same degree of color in the face by 
injecting the Femoral you have to inject about a 
quart more of colored fluid. This means exactly 
that in order to get as much fluid in the face from 
the Femoral as from the Axillary, you have to in¬ 
ject a quart more. 


68 


The Seven Advantages Derived From Using In the 
First Injection a Strong Preservative Causing 
But Little Rigidity, Such as 
Paraform. 

1. —The discolorations are better removed. 

2. —It enables the veins to retain the blood within 
their walls. 

3. —The face and neck become less puffy. 

4. —The flesh is better penetrated and saturated, 
and therefore better preserved. 

5. —A dry atmosphere produces less of a hard¬ 
ening effect on the skin of the face. 

6. —You can produce a better color in the left 
hand because it allows you to leave the left arm 
down during the first injection. 

7. —I know by experience that when the Axillary 
or Brachial is used the right shoulder gets its full 
supply of fluid from the first injection. Hence, 
when a strong formaldehyde fluid is used in the 
first injection this shoulder becomes quite rigid, so 
that after the embalming is done you have to break 
that rigidity to bring the arm back alongside of the 
body. But if in the first injection you use a fluid 
which causes much less rigidity, you will not en¬ 
counter this difficulty. 


69 


Preservation of the Egyptian 
Mummies Explained. 

A MYSTERY OF THOUSANDS OF YEARS 

SOLVED. 

BY DR. G. H. MICHEL, M. D., R. SC., 


In these past years I have made a thorough study 
of bacterial decomposition, that is to say, of the 
bacteria whose function it is to reduce to soil what 
arose from the soil, which includes all organic mat¬ 
ter, animal and vegetable. In the course of these 
studies and experiments I found that what had been 
regarded as a wonder for so long was in fact a 
simple thing, that almost anyone can perform. My 
findings enable me to assert most emphatically that 
the Egyptian mummies were not preserved by anti¬ 
septics or disinfectants, or by anything related in 
any way to the present methods of embalming. My 
conclusions will be found self-evident after reading 
the following which contains the fundamental proof. 

In the preservation of the Egyptian mummies two 
things have to be explained, namely: The preven¬ 
tion of bacterial decomposition and the prevention 
of disintegration from the wear and tear of thou¬ 
sands of years. These two things are here satis¬ 
factorily explained. 

It is admitted that the Egyptian process consisted 
of removing the internal organs and packing the 
cavities with clay or other substances. The most 
authentic thing known, however, is that the bodies 
were tightly bandaged. 


70 



The Mummies Were Not Embalmed at All. 


My conclusions are founded, not only upon what 
I discovered, but also upon the exclusion of all 
means of embalming which could not have been 
known to the Egyptians of olden time. From my 
findings the fact hurts out that the mummies were 
not embalmed at all. How they were preserved will 
be seen further. 

To-day a body can be preserved after death by 
thorough antisepsis, that is, its flesh must be sat¬ 
urated with an embalming fluid as it is saturated 
with blood during life, and the fluid must be strong 
enough to prevent bacterial growth. The fluid is 
made to circulate through the flesh by way of the 
arteries, just as the blood does in life, but the cir¬ 
culation of the blood and the circulatory system, 
which includes the arteries, capillaries and veins, 
were unknown to the Egyptians, this discovery be¬ 
ing only a few centuries old. Therefore this pro¬ 
cedure could not have been used at that time. 
Antisepsis and bacteriology were also entirely un¬ 
known to the Egyptians, these being still more re¬ 
cent discoveries. Furthermore, bacteria or germ- 
life can only be revealed by the most powerful 
microscopes, which also are of recent origin. Again 
whatever things they could have inclosed in the 
cavities after removing the internal organs could 
never have preserved the limbs. 

Hence, internal embalming by means of disin¬ 
fectants must be excluded from the Egyptian pro¬ 
cess of mummifying. On the other hand, external 
embalming by means of disinfectants applied to the 
surfaces of the body could neither have prevented 
decomposition in the muscles, because where there 
is no blood circulating there is no absorption beyond 
the skin. After thus showing that the Egyptians 
could not have protected the bodies from bacterial 
decomposition by means of internal flesh disinfec¬ 
tion because the circulation of the blood had not 
been discovered, we now come to the last point, the 
only thing left to argument and the only way in 
which they could have mummified the bodies. I 
tested this very thing and there I found the truth. 
Here are my discoveries: 


f 


71 


The breaking down of the body is produced by 
bacterial growth, which is extremely rapid. The 
growth is attended by two by-products, toxin and 
gas. The bacteria grow in and from the flesh as a 
natural process, they being a part of nature. Bac¬ 
terial growth takes place as follows: Each bac¬ 
terium (singular of bacteria) develops from another 
bacterium. It is fully formed in less than a minute, 
and in less than another minute it itself gives rise 
to a fellow by segmentation. This proliferation by 
segmentation from the same bacterium is repeated 
from 60 to 90 times an hour as long as there is food 
for development. When the food is exhausted the 
bacteria die. Thus in 24 hours each bacterium, by 
successive crops, produces many thousands, and the 
general proliferation continues until all the soft 
parts of the body have been absorbed into bacterial 
growth. 

This absorption of the body by bacterial growth 
is, strictly speaking, a necessary transmutation. I 
say a necessary transmutation because the flesh in 
its organized state cannot be assimilated by the 
soil, but the bacteria themselves, as soon as dead, 
are suitable for soil assimilation and readily assim¬ 
ilated. Hence, the body has to undergo bacterial 
transmutation, i.e., be turned into a mass of bac¬ 
teria, in order to be suitable for soil assimilation, 
and thus reach its ultimate state, or rather, revert 
to its original state. 

The dead body undergoes three successive stages 
of transition, namely: Expansion, shrinking and 

disintegration. 

Expansion is due to gas formation in all tissues. 
The body swells up in the first stage because the 
gas does not find its way of escape. Shrinking be¬ 
gins when the gas finds its way out of the body 
freely through the pores, appearing on the skin in 
the form of scum. Disintegration of the flesh fol¬ 
lows, and when it is complete the last of the bac¬ 
teria, which have done the work, themselves die in 
the last remnants of the body. 

My experiments showed that when, in the first 
stage, expansion and the escape of the gas are pre¬ 
vented the bacteria can no longer proliferate and 
they die, killed in fact by their own products—toxin 
and gas. This is just what resulted from the Egyp¬ 
tian process of mummifying. Hence, the whole se¬ 
cret of the mummies lies in the way they were 
swaddled. It is well known they were tightly ban¬ 
daged, but ordinary dry bandages, not being air- 


72 


tight, could not have prevented the escape of gas 
and the gradual evaporation of the fluids which 
make up about 85 per cent, of the body. Moreover 
dry bandages would have fallen to pieces in a few 
centuries, for no cloth can stand the wear and tear 
of thousands of years. But the bandages they used 
were immersed in a gluing substance which, when 
dry, produced a tightly-fitting swaddle of iron 
strength and air-tight, invulnerable to time and un¬ 
breakable from the internal gas-pressure. Silicate 
of soda (water glass), plaster of paris or ordinary 
carpenters glue would answer this very purpose. 
Hence, expansion, the escape of gas and evapora¬ 
tion being prevented, no decomposition could ever 
have taken place, and no part of that iron-bound 
body could ever have gotten lost. That is why such 
bodies remained intact, mummified. 

As bacteria,, which, alone, can break down a body 
in the natural way, had not been revealed to the 
Egyptians by the microscope, their original purpose 
in thus swaddling the bodies could only have been 
to retain their form intact and prevent the rise of 
odor. The prevention of decomposition was an in¬ 
cidental result. 

Anyone wishing to mummify a body in the same 
way as the Egyptians used to do can do so to-day 
by wrapping it up tightly and thoroughly with band¬ 
ages impregnated with silicate of soda. The fea¬ 
tures of the face can be retained by applying thereon 
several coats of silicate without bandages. But, of 
course, such bodies have nothing life-like. 

The writer has succeeded in producing a coloring 
which gives a strikingly life-like color to the face 
of the dead when mixed with any embalming fluid, 
and is the first thing found that removes the yellow¬ 
ness of jaundice. This coloring does not exist in 
nature, it is a chemical color, so strong that in its 
concentrated form, it penetrates even porcelain. It 
is diluted over a hundred times when made ready 
for use. 


73 


OUR OLD MUMMY. 

One Year Old This February, 1913. 

Embalmed February, 1912, with Paraform 
and Ozoform in the arteries, and one bottle 
of Glacial in the abdomen. Though left at all 
times exposed in a warm room, this body is 
to this date, February, 1913, in a perfect state 
of preservation, and no odor ever arose from 
it. It has slowly dried up but remains in full 
form as seen in this picture. (On exhibition at 
John I. Nunn’s undertaking establishment, 
2347 East 55th Street, Cleveland, O.) 


74 





OUR YOUNG MUMMY. 

Three Months Old This 15th of February, 1913. 

Body of Thomas Woodrow. 

Embalmed November 16th, 1912, with Para- 
form and Ozoform in the arteries and one bot¬ 
tle of Glacial in the abdomen. To this date, 
February, 1913, this body is in a perfect 
state of preservation and lifelike. No change 
whatever has taken place in it. This one is 
to be a test not only for preservation, but also 
as to the length of time that we can keep a body 
life-like. With this object in view this body is 
being kept protected from the air. (On ex¬ 
hibition at same address as the preceding.) 


75 








A 21-STORY COMMUNITY MAUSOLEUM 
Projected for New York City. 

(See over.) 






























































































































































































































































Upon the suggestion of a New York syndi¬ 
cate interested in the realization of such a 
project, Dr. G. H. Michel modified its plan 
from the pyramidal (his original idea) to the 
vertical form, to double its capacity. This 
palatial edifice, built upon a basis of one-fourth 
acre, will contain 54,000 bodies in individual 
crypts, that is, as many as a cemetery of forty- 
four acres, or 176 times more than the same 
space in a cemetery. 

A mausoleum of this type will be of tre¬ 
mendous advantage in large cities, where the 
ground is so costly, and is in fact the present 
crying need of such cities as New York and 
Chicago. 

Our method of embalming, together with 
the principles taught in “The Scientific Em- 
balmer," insures perpetual preservation and 
lifelikeness for years, as proven by the two 
mummies shown in the preceding pages. This 
renders possible the construction of such sky¬ 
scraper mausoleums as here illustrated, with¬ 
out necessitating the disinfecting plant in con¬ 
stant operation of the present small community 
mausoleums. 

How does our friend, the undertaker, stand 
on this question of public mausoleums? The 
question is of national interest and we would 
be pleased to know the opinion of the major¬ 
ity. As the ground becomes more and more 
precious and is badly needed by the living, 
should not the cemeteries be made to extend 
skyward instead of landward, the space above 
being unlimited? The question involves a 
matter of economy, besides the satisfaction of 
giving the dead a dry resting place in a pala¬ 
tial monument. 

Public mausoleums of this type were not to 
be thought of until the question of perpetual 
preservation had been solved. Now that it is 
solved let the question be considered judic¬ 
iously by the public at large. An “Opinion 


77 




is a peculiar thing - which assumes a different 
complexion in different men. The men close 
to nature say: “What arose from the . soil 
should return to the soil.” The rude natural¬ 
ist goes even further and savs: “The return 
to soil should be quickened by cremation.” We 
believe that is all true, but the sentimentalist 
does not agree with us. He is horrified by 
the idea of being cremated or cast into the 
ground to rot. In fact, we cannot tell the peo¬ 
ple what is best to be done, because the people 
has a will of its own and cannot be controlled ; 
and we can no longer remain blind to the fact 
that the small community mausoleums so far 
built are well patronized, though being a costly 
form of burial. Unless cremation is to become 
general, every one will agree that the present 
rate of growth of our American cities will soon 
render imperative the building of such sky¬ 
scraper mausoleums. 



78 



OUR PRODUCTS 


PARAFORM, 


The Only Volatile Embalming Fluid. 

Paraform, as we make it now, possesses the 
unique and peculiar property of disinfecting the 
tissues by volatilization; that is, two of its dis¬ 
infecting principles volatilize by osmosis 
through the tissues and permeate them as per¬ 
fumes permeate the air, though no odor is 
noticeable. Anyone can readily understand 
that this peculiar penetrating property will 
carry disinfection to the parts inaccessible to 
ordinary fluids, especially strong formaldehyde 
fluids. 

In addition, Paraform, though being a 
powerful preservative, causes but little rigidity 
and flows in easily. It is to be used in the first 
half-gallon instead of the weak solution that 
many embalmers inject “to wash out the tis¬ 
sues/’ as they say, unaware that this weak 
solution, once in the tissues, cannot be driven 
out, that it is there to stay and that it will not 
preserve. Paraform washes out the capillaries 
as well as the weak solution does, and at the 
same time preserves thoroughly. It contains 
a small percentage of formaldehyde in a modi¬ 
fied form. 

Paraform is just the fluid for undertakers 
who want but a very moderate degree of rigid¬ 
ity. 


79 


OZOFORM. 


Ozoform is a very strong fluid containing a 
larger percentage of formaldehyde than Para- 
form, therefore causing greater rigidity. Para- 
form in the first half gallon and Ozoform in 
the second half gallon give just the degree of 
rigidity that the majority of embalmers want. 
To produce still greater rigidity Ozoform 
should be used exclusively or both fluids used 
with hot instead of cold water. 


GLACIAL. 

“Glacial” is a concentrated cavity fluid 
which mummifies the abdomen in less 
than an hour and renders the further 
■formation of gas therein as impossible 
as in granite. This is the strongest fluid which 
could possibly be made to check putrefaction 
and still it does not injure the tissues or instru¬ 
ments in any way, being non-poisonous. Re¬ 
peated tests have proven that the most virulent 
and resistant germs are instantly killed by it. 
This cavity fluid should be used in all cases 
in which the conditions in the abdomen are 
bad, especially in peritonitis, typhoid fever, 
septicemia, diseases of the liver, deaths from 
childbirth, pneumonia, dropsy, whenever much 
gas is found in the abdomen or in the tissues, 
etc., and in all bodies that are to be shipped. 

In the case of children below ten, if a bottle 
of Glacial be injected in the abdomen, one or 
two tablespoonfuls in the mouth, and the skin 
bathed with it, there will be no necessity of 
making any arterial injection, unless the body 
is swollen up with gas or to be shipped. 

When a bottle of “Glacial” is in the abdo¬ 
men the body can be shipped three times 
around the world without fear. 


80 




BALMROSE. 


Balmore is a dull liniment which when rub¬ 
bed on the lips prevents them from turning- 
black one or two days after embalming, and 
when used on the face as massage keeps the 
skin soft and retains the good complexion that 
the embalmer has given it. Furthermore, it 
promotes an even distribution of the fluid in 
the face. After using it wipe off the excess. 
It is easily removed. 

Every embalmer knows that in about 30 
per cent, of cases the lips turn black within 
48 hours after embalming. (Hence the impor¬ 
tance of using Balmrose to prevent the occur¬ 
rence. No outfit is complete without it. 

Price, $1.00 per tube. 


ECLIPSE SOAP. 

Eclipse Soap is a soft soap prepared espe¬ 
cially for the embalmer. It cleanses the hands 
and leaves them as soft as velvet. It removes 
the bloodstains from the cooling boards, 
morgue tables and instruments better than any¬ 
thing so far known. In fact, it is a soap for 
the special and general use of the embalmer,— 
a new addition necessary to every embalming 
outfit. 

Price, 25 cents a box. 


81 






Some Testimonials on Our New System 

of Embalming. 

A CASE OF YELLOW JAUNDICE. 

FROM THE JOHN I. NUNN CO., 2347 East. 55th 
St., Cleveland, Ohio. 

Dear Doctor Michel:—Just a few words about 
and in favor of your new discovery. We think, from 
our experiments, that you have the best thing on 
the market today for the up-to-date embalmer. Your 
colored fluid is a producer of that life-like color that 
we like to see in every dead body. We are using 
your new system (Paraform & Ozo-Form), and the re¬ 
sults are excellent. We must mention two cases 
in which your colored fluid was used. One of these 
was a jaundice case, one of the worst we have ever 
seen. It removed the entire yellowness and gave 
the flesh a nice pinkish color. This is the first time 
in all our experiences as embalmers that we have 
found something to help us in a jaundice case. 

Fifty-six days ago we embalmed the body of a 
still-born infant, and at this writing the color is just 
the same as when embalmed, and the preservation is 
also perfect. 


FROM J. F. MILLARD & SON, 10628 Euclid Ave., 
Cleveland, Ohio. 

Dear Doctor Michel:—We have used your Embalm¬ 
ing Fluids—“Paraform” and “Ozo-Form,” in conjunc¬ 
tion—as you advise—with most excellent results. 
On one very bad case, where the septic conditions 
were most pronounced, the results were very gratify¬ 
ing, the preservation was perfect, and the cosmetic 
condition fine. We consider this case an unusually 
severe test and do not hesitate to heartily recom¬ 
mend your fluids, and especially your method of 
using the two fluids for arterial injection. 


FROM SAXTON & SON, 1550 West 25th St., and 
9802 Euclid Ave., Cleveland, Ohio. 

Doctor Michel & Co.—In reply to your inquiry as 
to how satisfied we are with your fluids we will say 
that we are very well pleased with them. The 
fluids do all that you claim for them, and we recom¬ 
mend them to embalmers. 


82 




FROM CLARK & BLAKE, Troy, N. Y. 


Dr. G. H. Michel & Co.: 

Gentlemen.—Have used your fluids on two bodies 
and in each case had the most perfect cosmetic 
effect I have ever seen in any body. After inject¬ 
ing the fluid even the toe and finger nails were a 
natural pink color and the face a delicate flush that 
could only be equaled by that of a live person. If 
your fluid proves as good a preservative in the hot 
weather as it is in cosmetic effect, you have any 
other fluid (and I have tried nearly all of them) 
beaten a mile. 


A CASE OF YELLOW JAUNDICE. 

FROM E. E. GROSS, Indianapolis, Ind., July 1, 
1912. 

Am glad to say that your fluid for clearing up 
yellow jaundice is just what it is claimed to be. I 
used it on a body on June 12, 1912, that weighed 
two hundred and fifteen pounds, and buried her on 
the 15th. The body had a nice, clear color, which 
was very gratifying to the relatives. As I had told 
them it was the first time I used your fluid and 
what you claimed it would do, they were as con¬ 
vinced of its merits as I was and I am glad to say so. 
If anyone doubts this statement I stand ready to 
prove it beyond a single doubt. Success to you, as 
it was a success to me. 


FROM HENRY C. VEHLING, Indianapolis, Ind. 

Please ship two more cases of fluid immediately. 
Your trial case proved satisfactory and bears my 
approval. I wish to have your fluid on hand all 
the time. 


FROM W. E. LONGLEY, Noblesville, Ind., Oct. 17, 
1912. 

Your Paraform has given much better satisfaction 
than I had expected. Please send special price on 
case lots. 


FROM EDGERLEY & BESSOM, Reading, Mass., 
Sept. 17, 1912. 

We have used your fluid with the best of results. 
Please send us five more cases at once, as we do not 
want to be out of it. The complimentary remarks 
about the natural looks it produces make a fellow 
feel good. 


FROM THE A. H. KELLEY CO., Wh olesale 
Funeral Supplies, Pittsburg, Pa. 

The reports we have had from your fluid have 
been very complimentary, and we will have no hesi¬ 
tancy in recommending it to our customers. 


83 







A CASE OF YELLOW JAUNDICE. 

FROM FRANK F. BLICKENS, Carbondale, Pa., 
Nov. 7, 1912. 

I have been in the undertaking business nineteen 
years, and in that time have used all kinds of fluids, 
but must admit that yours is one of the very best 
I ever used. Here are my experiences with your 
trial case: 

The first body on which I used it was a jaundiced 
child. I injected the Carotids upward. The jaund¬ 
ice disappeared and was replaced with that life color 
that your fluid gives, and the little body looked very 
fine. The next case was an old lady with which I 
had as fine results. Then had an old man that my 
assistant embalmed; kept him nearly a week, and 
the results were marvelous. Also used it on a lady 
thirty-seven years old, dead of child-birth; this was 
a beautiful case; life appeared transparent in her 
face. You will soon hear from me with an order. 


A CASE OF YELLOW JAUNDICE. 


FROM FRED BEILSTEIN, 3311 Prospect Ave., 
Cleveland, Ohio. 

My Dear Doctor Michel: — 

I had used your colored Ozo-Form for some time 
to my great satisfaction when you advanced your 
new system—Paraform first and Ozo-Form next. I 
tried this and obtained still finer results. I found 
that the advantages you promised were realized, and 
shall certainly continue to practice this method. 
Your studies and painstaking endeavors at improv¬ 
ing the work of embalming will no doubt be appre¬ 
ciated by every one trying your method, so simple 
and yet so effective. Your Ozo-Form once stood a 
very crucial test in my hands, stopping decomposi¬ 
tion in a body which had been dead for nine days 
before embalming. As to the cosmetic effect of the 
coloring in your fluid, it has to be seen to be be¬ 
lieved. Once, after embalming a jaundiced body, I 
was most agreeably surprised to find that it had 
changed the yellowness into a natural color. 


A CASE OF YELLOW JAUNDICE. 


FROM EDW. E. LINDHORST, 1610 Clark Ave., 
Cleveland, Ohio. 

I have now been using your new method of em¬ 
balming for some time with your fluids, Paraform 
first and Ozo-Form next, with the most satisfactory 
results. The coloring in them produces a very 
beautiful cosmetic effect,—a life-picture which could 
not be improved upon. I used the same on a jaun¬ 
dice case and I must say that for the first time in 
my life I was able to restore a jaundiced face to its 
natural color. Preservation in every case was per¬ 
fect. 


84 






FROM THE H ASEN PFLUG-K ELLY CO., East 
55th St., Cleveland, Ohio. 

Your new system of embalming—Paraform first 
and Ozo-Form next—is commendable and marks a 
distinct advance in practical embalming. Your col¬ 
ored Paraform Fluid circulates so readily and uni¬ 
formly through the capillaries that it produces that 
life-like appearance which gives comfort to the fam¬ 
ily and arouses wonder and interest among the 
friends. 


FROM S. A. GENTLEE & SON, Beverly, Mass. 

Have used your fluid and like it very much. 
Please send us four more cases at once. 


FROM J. D. DEUTSCH, 2404 E. 55th St., Cleve¬ 
land, O. 

In regard to your fluid, wish to say that I have 
tried it on a number of cases, and in my opinion it 
is the best I have ever used, and as soon as I 
get rid of the other fluids on hand will use no other, 
as the best is not too good for my trade. 


A CASE OF YELLOW JAUNDICE. 

FROM WM. A. NUNN, 8101 Woodland Ave., Cleve¬ 
land, O. 

This is to certify that I am using Dr. Michel’s 
Fluid and find it as good as represented. It produces 
a cosmetic effect unequalled by any other fluid. I 
had a very bad case of yellow jaundice which it 
brought back to lifelike color, and the body looked 
very fine. 


FROM F. ZIEHM & SONS, 6016 St. Clair Ave., 
Cleveland, Ohio. 

We are pleased to report that we find your new 
method of embalming more practical and productive 
of finer results than other methods so far known. 
Your colored fluids produce a beautiful cosmetic ef¬ 
fect, such as we had never seen before. We are well 
pleased with them. 


FROM WM. WISCH MEIER, 2560-72 West 25th St., 
Cleveland, Ohio. 

I have used your Fluid and Coloring Compound for 
about four months. Its preserving qualities and the 
enlivening effect it produces will prove a great ben¬ 
efit to the profession. 


85 







TWO CASES OF YELLOW JAUNDICE. 


FROM MR. JAY P. PARRISH, 1738 E. 55th St., 
Cleveland, Ohio. 

I have used your new system—Paraform first and 
Ozo-Form next—now for several months. It cer¬ 
tainly works well and introduces an improved and 
more practical way of embalming. I had used your 
Ozo-Form alone for a long time before with in¬ 
variable success, but the new method is still better. 
The Coloring in your fluids is really a valuable in¬ 
vention, a thing which had long been looked for. It 
makes the bodies truly life-like, which is highly 
pleasing to the families. I had two cases of yellow 
jaundice since using your fluids and in both the yel¬ 
lowness gave way to a beautiful flesh tint. 


FROM ROTH & WEBER, 4160 Lorain Ave., Cleve¬ 
land, Ohio. 

We have given your system of embalming with 
your own fluids a thorough trial, and have obtained 
the very best results, more so than with other 
methods. We have no doubt that any embalmer 
who gives it a trial will use no other. 


FROM STAS BROTHERS, 2000 Lorain Ave., Cleve¬ 
land, Ohio. 

We have tried your new system of embalming 
on a number of cases and found it highly satisfac¬ 
tory, so much so that we have adopted it altogether, 
discarding all other methods and fluids for your own. 


FROM DRESS AND SON, West 41st St., Cleveland, 

We heartily endorse your new method and fluids. 
Both are yielding fine results in our hands. 


FROM HENRY J. DRESS, 3266 West 41st St., 
Cleveland, Ohio. 

I have been using your Fluids for some time and 
should say I am highly pleased with them. Their 
preserving qualities and cosmetic effect are perfect. 


FROM STEVEN A. JACOBS, 8923 Buckeye Road, 
Cleveland, Ohio. 

After using your new system on nine bodies I do 
not hesitate to pronounce it a long step further in 
the field of progress. The procedure is decidedly 
advantageous and its results with your Colored 
Fluids ace invariably beautiful. 


86 








LIFE-LIKE AFTER FOUR MONTHS. 


August 26th, 1911. 

This is to certify that out of fifty-six bodies that 
we have in our morgue for fall dissection, the body 
of Louis Klein, received April 24th of this year 
and embalmed by Mr. J. P. Parish with Dr. Michel’s 
colored fluid, is to this day the best preserved and 
best looking of them all, being still life-like and 
odorless. While the other 55 bodies, embalmed with 
other fluids, have undergone the usual cadaverous 
changes and turned ashen-gray, greenish or black, 
Louis Klein’s body has retained the natural pink 
flesh color unchanged. 

G. P. LEONHART, 
Curator Western Reserve University, 

Cleveland, Ohio. 


FROM C. R. DAILY, Canal Fulton, O., September 
12, 1912. 

Your fluid is very good. It stood some very hard 
tests with me. 


FROM SCOTT & McCORMICK, Eaton, Ind., Oct. 
12, 1912. 

We had fine results with your fluid. 


FROM TRAPP & GARDNER, Ripley, O., July 7, 
1912. 

We like your fluid very much and have had great 
success with it. The color is just right; it gives a 
beautiful complexion. We like it, and after using- 
up some of the fluids we have in stock will re¬ 
order. 


FROM G. A. WAGNER, Avon, O. 

The relatives of the bodies I embalm with your 
fluid invariably remark “How beautiful he (or she) 
looks.” Of course that does not hurt my feelings 
any. 


FROM BENDER BROS., Rochester, N. Y., Nov. 6, 
1912. 

Please duplicate our previous order, as we have 
had very good success with your fluid. 


FROM L. A. HURD, Sanford, Maine, Oct. 31,1912. 

I am very much pleased with your fluids—Para- 
form and Ozoform. They are certainly better than 
any other I know of. 


87 








FROM T. C. McMACKIN, Coroner, Fairfield, III., 
Nov. 1, 1912. 

I have been in the undertaking business for thirty- 
two years; found all fluids fairly good, but yours, 
the last I tried, would carry the prize for the fine 
complexion it produces. 


FROM EMERSON POTTER, Lewiston, Pa., Aug. 
30, 1912. 

Your fluid is working satisfactorily. Kept a wom¬ 
an 225 pounds for six days perfectly. Ship me three 
cases at once. 


FROM A. E. MAUGER, Birdsboro, Pa., Oct. 14, 
1912. 

Your fluid is O. K. I used it in hot weather and 
it cleared up two very badly discolored bodies which 
had laid twelve hours before I got them ,and they 
came out fine. 


FROM JOHN BRYANT’S SONS, Somerville, Mass., 
Oct. 5, 1912. 

We like your fluid very much and endorse it. We 
are waiting for a jaundiced case to try it on. 


FROM J. S. FREELAND, Axtell, Neb., Sept. 20, 
1912. 

I have tested your fluid on a number of bodies, 
kept them four or five days, and they looked just 
fine. Send me two more cases at once. 


FROM JOHN A. GLIDDEN, Dover, N. H., Oct. 16, 
1912. 

I am quite pleased with your fluid. Please send 
me four more cases. 


88 







Of the other undertakers who have tried our new 
system and fluids recently, the following have al¬ 
ready reported excellent results: 

Monreal Bros., Cleveland, O. 

John J. Hanket, Cleveland, O. 

Anton Grdina, Cleveland, O. 

Beckenbach, H., & Sons, Cleveland, O. 

Koehler Bros., Cleveland, O. 

B. Majewski, Cleveland, O. 

Anton Nosek, Cleveland, O. 

Chas. Steinmetz, Cleveland, O. 

C. P. Horak, Cleveland, O. 

The McCarthy Co., Cleveland, O. 

R. E. Jones, Broad St., Columbus, O. 

Pierce H. Thompson, Lebanon, Pa. 

Miller Bros., Delaware, Ohio. 

George J. Wagner, Avon, Ohio. 

N. T. Dailey, Williamsburg, Ohio. 

M. G. Veh, Gibsonburg, Ohio. 

Chas. F. Baxter, Knightstown, Ind. 

Nicholas Emmerling, Hammond Ind. 

Thompson & Garrison, Burlington, Ind. 

R. H. Wiley, Flushing, O. 

A. E. Mauger, Birdsboro, Pa. 

Finn Brothers, Niagara Falls, N. Y. 

H. H. Brownlee, Claysville, Pa. 

Bender Bros., Rochester, N. Y. * 

F. Roedel & Son, Camden, N. J. 

W. M. Calkins, Bloosburg, Pa. 

Otis K. Viall, Akron, O. 

Patton & Arbaugh, Salem, O. 

Chas. S. Gross, Auburn, N. Y. 

Branch and Longacre, Medina, O. 

Thos. E. Corrie, Bone Gap, Ill. 

T. F. Reitz, Saginaw, Mich. 

J. H. Hunter, Fredericksburg, O. 

John F. Durkan, Scranton, Pa. 

F. J. Weigand, Barberton, O. 

Miller-Blanchard Co., Canton, O. 

The Mellott Co., Bellaire, O. 

W. L. Campfleld, Barberton, O. 


89 


Directions to Use Our Fluid 

Our new system of embalming, which has 
been approved by the best embalmers, con¬ 
sists of using a bottle of Paraform in the 
first half-gallon, and a bottle of Ozoform in 
the second half-gallon. 

When the body is small and cannot admit 
four quarts arterially the last quart should 
be injected into the abdomen. Three quarts 
is the minimum that should be injected in the 
arteries in bodies of over 100 pounds to obtain 
the best results. If less than that be injected 
and the results are not quite satisfactory, the 
embalmer should only blame himself. 

While the great majority of our customers 
follow our plan—Paraform first and Ozoform 
next—some of them who do not like rigid 
bodies prefer to use Paraform exclusively, 
while a few others who like to see quite a de¬ 
gree of rigidity opine to use Ozoform alone. 
We supply either kind upon demand at the 
same price. 

Either fluid is as good a preservative as 
the other. Both are formaldehyde fluids, 
Ozoform to a greater, and Paraform to a lesser 
degree. The latter is, however, as strong as 
the former, though in a different way. 

It must be remembered that in septic cases, 
typhoid fever, peritonitis, dropsy, and when¬ 
ever the abdomen is bloated or tissue gas is 
present, one or two bottles of concentrated 
(undiluted) fluid should be injected into the 
abdomen. 

In this case one bottle of our “Glacial'’ 
cavity fluid suffices to check putrefaction in¬ 
stantly. In bodies that are to be shipped, 
Glacial should always be used in the abdomen. 


90 


Directions to Strengthen the 
Color of the Fluid 

Unless ordered colorless, the fluid is supplied 
ready for use, already colored for bodies of 
light complexion. An extra two-ounce bottle 
of Coloring Compound is included in each case, 
with a glass tube to measure it, to make the 
color stronger for bodies which require it, as 
follows: 

For bodies of brown or yellow complexion, 
add one-third or one-half tubeful of Coloring 
to the half gallon. 

For real jaundiced bodies, add one tubeful 
to the half gallon, or one and a half or two tube¬ 
fuls if the jaundice is quite pronounced, and 
inject the Axillary or Carotids, not the 
Femoral. 

The yellowness of jaundice is best removed 
from bodies below the age of sixty. In older 
bodies, if there is a pronounced arterio¬ 
sclerosis, the circulation is more or less im¬ 
paired and consequently the results are often 
less satisfactory. 

If you follow our directions we assume full 
responsibility for all your cases and guarantee 
perfect preservation and a fine complexion. 

To differentiate jaundice from yellow com¬ 
plexion see our treatise—The Scientific Em¬ 
balm er. 

In Regard to Young Bodies. 

When embalming bodies below the age of 
fifteen of light complexion, especially children, 
we advise using Ozoform exclusively, or only 
three-quarters of a bottle of Paraform to the 
half gallon, because the latter is more highly 
colored than Ozoform and, if used in full 
strength in such bodies, is apt to make the face 
too pink. 

A sun-tanned face must be regarded as 
brown complexion. 

Black hair is a positive indication that the 
complexion is more or less brownish, though 
the face may not appear brown. Light hair 
always means light complexion. 


91 


Remember that the color to the face is given 
mostly by the first half gallon, that is, by the 
first colored bottle of fluid. The second injec¬ 
tion, either colored or colorless, quite often 
does not increase or decrease perceptibly the 
color produced by the first injection, because 
the face gets nearly its full supply of fluid from 
the first half gallon. 

The amount of coloring in our Paraform 
produces just the right color on the faces of 
all ordinary bodies of light complexion. If, 
in bodies of very light complexion, the face 
should appear a trifle too pink after embalm¬ 
ing, use the white substance that we supply 
wrapped in pink paper in each case. 

If, after injecting from two to three pints, 
no color appears on the face, add one-fourth or 
one-third of Coloring Compound to the bal¬ 
ance of fluid left in the jar, and a half or three- 
fourths of a tubeful in the next half gallon. 

If you do not get sufficient color on the face 
it means that the fluid did not contain suffi¬ 
cient Coloring Compound for that complexion. 

In Ozo-Form the color is one-fourth weaker 
than in Paraform, so that it cannot intensify 
the pink tint produced on the face by the Para¬ 
form, but evens it up when it is not uniform. 
Hence if anyone uses Ozo-Form exclusively 
he should strengthen its color correspondingly. 

To obtain the best color results on the face 
use the Axillary or brachial artery. 

If desired we will, upon request, furnish the 
fluid colorless, and inclose in the case a larger 
bottle of Coloring Compound, so that the em- 
balmer may color the fluid himself according 
to his liking. 

As a general rule you should wet the face 
before injecting, or still better, use water and 
glycerine half and half to apply or rub on the 
face. 

In order to produce the best color in the left 
hand, leave the left arm stretched alongside of 
the body until after injecting the first half gal¬ 
lon. Then bend it on the chest before inject¬ 
ing the Ozoform. 


92 


Our Coloring Compound can also be used 
externally, and it gives a more natural pink 
tint than any cosmetic on the market. Hence, 
if it happens that, in very old bodies, an even 
circulation cannot be obtained in the face, the 
color can be evened up by external application. 
In the same way, muddy or yellow discolora¬ 
tions can be easily covered up with a pink tint. 
To accomplish this proceed as follows: 

Mix a half teaspoonful of Coloring Com¬ 
pound with a teaspoonful of water. Then ap¬ 
ply this mixture to the skin with some cotton 
and wipe off or wash off the excess with an¬ 
other wad of cotton. It washes off very easily 
with water when diluted as above, though in 
its concentrated form it is not so easily re¬ 
moved. 



93 


INDEX 


Page 

Advantage of using first a strong fluid causing 

little rigidity . 25 

Autopsy cases . 54 

Bacteriology, a lesson in. 44 

Bacteria, classified . 46 

Pathogenic .46, 47, 48 

Saprophytic .40; 47, 49, 50 

Bacteria and Disinfectants. 51 

Bacilli of flesh decomposition. 51 

Intestinal putrefaction . 51 

Balmrose . 78 

Brain, injecting the. 60 

Bathing the skin with fluid.30, 32, 54, 59 

Blood, coagulation of. 20 

Disinfection of . 22 

Draining out of blood rendered unnecessary 17 

Discolorations; how to best remove them.. 19 
What parts of the body are drained out from 

the Axillary vein . 13 

Capillaries, the . 13 

Microscopic Anatomy .13, 14 

Size of the Capillaries. 14 

Size of their interspaces. 14 

Causes of the Pace turning black. 33 

Chemistry, a lesson in. 51 

Chemical incompatibilities . 52 

Chemical union . 52 

Circulation, obstructed, causes of. 39 

Mechanism of the. 39 

Circuit, completing the. 12 

Coagulation of the Blood. 20 

Can the blood coagulate in the Capillaries? 21 

Circulatory system, mechanism of the. 11 

Collateral circulation in the right arm. 63 

Decomposition setting in before death. 31 

Choking to death from internal gas. 31 

Disinfection of the Blood. 22 

How is the blood best disinfected?. 

Diseases of the Arteries. 59 

Diseases of the Veins. 59 

Discolorations, causes of. 35 

Blood colors . 38 

Bacterial colors . 36 

Chemical colors . 36 

Disease colors . 

Prevention of . 37 

Removal of . 19 

Discolorations of the face.. 19 

Discolorations of the lips. 36 


94 















































Page 

Draining out the blood, obstacle to. 19 

What parts of the body are drained out from 

the Axillary Vein . 13 

Dry air and formaldehyde. 66 

Dropsy .•. 60 

Eclipse soap . 78 

Embalming, Procedure for a thorough. 51 

Egyptian Mummies, Preservation of. 70 

Frothing in the mouth and nostrils, causes of.. 43 

Gas in the abdomen; how to determine and lo¬ 
cate . 64 

Glacial . 77 

Helpful Suggestions . 55 

Injecting a weak solution before the embalming 

fluid . 23 

Interesting discoveries . 68 

Jaundiced bodies . 42 

How to differentiate jaundice from yellow 

complexion . 42 

Mummies, Egyptian . 70 

Modern . 74 , 75 

Obstructed Circulation, cause of. 39 

Effect of a strong formaldehyde in the first 

injection . 40 

The three coats of the arteries and veins.. 41 
The vaso-motor nerves and the muscular 

fibres . 40 

Ozoform . 77 

Paraform . 76 

Phenomenon of death. 7 

Suspended animation . 9 

Revival of supposed dead bodies. 9 

Buried alive .. 10 

Nerve force and the Circulation.9, 10 

Medulla oblongata . 8 

Cervical nerve ganglia. 9 

Cardiac nerve ganglia. 9 

Dying by inches. 31 

Purpura . 38 

Quantity of fluid required to preserve. 61 

Reasons why a minimum of three quarts should 

be injected . 58 

Skin-slip .29, 32 

Swelling of the neck. 29 

Systemic circulation, table of. 15 

Tissue gas, Facts about. 26 

Signs of .28, 29 

Treatment of . 30 


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MAR 8 ISIS 













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